


Whatsoever a Man Soweth

by crimsonherbarium



Series: Shattered Silver [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Be Careful What You Wish For, Bisexual Lambert, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Deal with a Devil, Death, Faustian Bargain, Hearts of Stone (The Witcher 3 DLC), Hurt/Comfort, Lambert centric, M/M, Magic, Plot Centric, Post-Canon, Post-Hearts of Stone (The Witcher 3 DLC), Post-The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Resurrection, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Whump, Witcher Contracts, came back wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-02-09 14:23:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18639895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/pseuds/crimsonherbarium
Summary: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap. -Galatians 6:7It has been four years since Aiden's death and the Battle of Kaer Morhen. Lambert is licking his wounds after a particularly shitty contract when he finds himself face-to-face with a certain merchant of mirrors. And he has a very interesting proposition...(This story is a direct sequel to my other large Lambert/Aiden work,Silver for Monsters. However, it can easily be read as a standalone fic. Updates every other week on Mondays.)





	1. Smoke and Mirrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the wonderful [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

The fire in the grate crackled dully in the background as Lambert raised the bottle of vodka to his lips and drank. He winced as it burned its way down his throat. It was harsh shit—near undrinkable, bordering on poisonous for a human.

Lambert wasn’t exactly human, though.

The contract had gone poorly. Much more poorly than usual. The size and ferocity of the basilisk he’d been hired to kill had caught him off guard. The thing must have been hunting around the village where the notice had been posted for decades; it was as big as a house and hit harder than a shaelmaar. Lambert worked his fingers down his sides, grimacing, and counted three—no, four—broken ribs. He took another draught of the vodka and swished it around his mouth before spitting it into the empty bowl in front of him that had once contained rabbit stew. It came back viscous and bloody.

He was beginning to regret arguing with Keira. Well, that wasn’t completely true. He’d meant every damn word of what he’d said. But he was beginning to regret storming off at the end. Things had been comfortable in Nazair. Comfortable was the last fucking word he’d have used to describe this ramshackle hut that passed for a tavern in the east of what was now Nilfgaardian Temeria. The wind howled outside and the cracked panes of the windows rattled in their frames.

“Oi, what’re you doin’ here, cat-eyes?” a drunken voice slurred. Lambert looked up to see a red-faced man stumbling toward his table. “We don’t like your kind ‘round here.”

Lambert groaned. He wasn’t in any shape for a fight right now. “Get lost,” he growled, drawing the sign of Axii.

The man stumbled and rubbed his head as if he’d just been hit with a mallet, and then wandered off in the opposite direction. Lambert sighed and took another draught of his vodka. He had a splitting headache coming on, and the low roar of raucous conversation that filled the tavern certainly wasn’t helping.

At a table nearby, a man slapped the waitress’s ass hard and made her drop the tray of tankards she’d been carrying with a crash. His friends roared with laughter.

“Fuck this,” Lambert muttered to himself, draining his drink.

“Come now,” a jovial voice said from somewhere behind him. “Surely it isn’t all bad.”

Lambert stiffened, his hand twitching toward the hilt of his sword.

“I can assure you that you won’t be needing that,” the man continued, clapping Lambert on the shoulder and sliding into the seat across from him.

Lambert narrowed his eyes, sizing up the newcomer. He was of average height, with thinning hair cropped close to his skull and a scattering of rough stubble. His threadbare yellow jerkin and blue leggings marked him as a peasant, but his eyes betrayed cunning that sent a chill down Lambert’s spine. The man leaned back in his seat idly, with an expression on his face that made him look very much like a cat who had just caught an especially plump mouse.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lambert was still considering drawing his blade. There was something about the man that deeply unsettled him.

“Ah, how rude of me.” The man made a mock bow from his seated position. “Allow me to introduce myself. Gaunter O’Dimm, at your service.”

“Doesn’t answer my question. Who are you?” Lambert squinted at the man, trying to read something, anything, from his expression. People didn’t go out of their way to strike up a conversation with him. They were usually more than happy to pay the witcher for his services and send him hastily on his way. He didn’t exactly do much to endear himself to the common folk.

“A merchant, of sorts. Some have called me Master Mirror, others The Man of Glass. Gaunter O’Dimm will do nicely though, I think.” He glanced at Lambert’s hand and made a long-suffering expression. “Please do forgo the theatrics. I can assure you I’ve not come here to kill you.”

“Be a damn fool if you had,” Lambert spat back. “What do you want from me?”

“The question is not what I want from you, Lambert. The question is: _what do you want from me?_ ”

The hairs on the back of Lambert’s neck stood up. “How the fuck do you know my name?”

O’Dimm chuckled. “I’m not omniscient, but I know quite a lot. And I’ve only ever heard tell of one witcher who wears two medallions round his neck.”

Aiden’s medallion nestled close to Lambert’s heart suddenly felt as if it were made of lead. “What could you possibly have that I want?”

“Allow me to explain.” O’Dimm leaned in, clearly quite at ease despite his proximity to Lambert’s murderous glare. “I am, indeed, a merchant of sorts. My specialty lies in granting certain requests. Things that are difficult to achieve for most men. One might say that I can make dreams come true.”

Lambert narrowed his eyes, sizing O’Dimm up. He shook his head. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Nonsense.” O’Dimm smiled widely. “I can accomplish things most would consider impossible. Surely there’s something you want, in that bruised and broken heart of yours. Is there really nothing you regret? No one in all your years that you miss?”

Lambert clenched his jaw.

“Don’t you wish to see him again?” O’Dimm cajoled, waving his hand and conjuring a cloud of smoke that morphed and twisted to take on the shape of Aiden’s face.

Pain shot like a bolt through Lambert’s chest. “How—”

“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart,” O’Dimm replied with the air of one quoting a great philosopher. He smiled. It didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Fuck off.” Lambert drained his mug and dug in his pocket for a few coins. He tossed them down on the table and gathered up his belongings.

“No matter.” O’Dimm shrugged. “Should you change your mind, my offer stands. Opportunities like these come by but once in many lifetimes, Lambert. You’d do well not to pass it up.”

Lambert bristled. “Listen, asshole. I’m leaving. If you follow me, I”ll kill you. That’s a promise.”

O’Dimm threw back his head and laughed. “That would be very entertaining indeed.” He rose and bowed once more. “I’ll not trouble you further. If you do decide that you’d like to take me up on my offer, simply speak my name at a crossroads when the moon is high. I’ll find you.” He took a few steps toward the exit, paused, and looked back over his shoulder. “Don’t take too long.”

The merchant whistled to himself as he walked off into the night; a mournful, almost menacing tune that made the hairs on the back of Lambert’s neck stand on end. It was only after he’d vanished into the darkness and a wall of noise hit Lambert that he realized the tavern had fallen completely silent.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lambert is back, baby! (and so am I!) 🌹
> 
> If this is your first time reading one of my stories, welcome! If you read the previous story, welcome back! It's been almost a year to the day since I first started posting Silver for Monsters, and I'm back with a new adventure. A lot has happened since Silver for Monsters wrapped up. I've got two other longfics going right now (one in [Skyrim](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17887058/chapters/42221864), one in [Detroit: Become Human](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17914541/chapters/42296567)), I've written a ton of shorter pieces, and I got married! Now that life has calmed down a bit, I'm super excited to share this story with you. I've been planning it for a long time, and I am very, _very_ excited for the places it's going to go.
> 
> I've created a [series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1316405) here to house these larger Witcher stories and to help out people who want to subscribe but don't want to get notifications for my works in other fandoms. 
> 
> If you want more Lambert and Aiden, check out my [Wheel of the Year](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1291211) series. It's a collection of smutty one-shots corresponding to the eight major pagan festivals and will be updated throughout the year. The next fic in the series is for Beltane and will be posted May 1.
> 
> I also have a [series of smutty-one shots](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1283120) featuring Cerys an Craite and Jutta an Dimun if femslash is more your speed!
> 
> Thank you as always for reading my stories! If you enjoy my works, please consider leaving me a comment! I love hearing your thoughts on the story as it develops ❤️


	2. Sealed in Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read, as always, by the lovely [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

Lambert felt profoundly unsettled somewhere deep in his bones.

He’d been feeling this way for weeks—ever since that thrice-damned mirror merchant had walked into his life and torn open old wounds. It was as if O’Dimm had reached into his chest and dug up something ugly and wanting. His medallions hadn’t stopped humming since, emitting the faintest vibration though he could never sense any imminent danger. Darkness lurked somewhere over the horizon.

And yet…

And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about what the bastard had said that night at the tavern. The promises he’d made weren’t ones any mortal man could keep. Not even the most skilled sorceress Lambert had ever met would dare to promise that they could raise a man from the shadows and have him walk amongst the living once more. Necromancy was reviled by all but the most narcissistic of practitioners, and it was messy. O’Dimm had promised something else. Something more.

Lambert did his best to put it out of his head. He’d buried those dead. He’d done his mourning. Not all of it in healthy ways, but still, he’d done it. Now those ghosts had been roused from their slumber and were clamoring at the inside of his skull. So many questions left unanswered. So many regrets.

Lambert’s heart still twisted uncomfortably in his chest every time he so much as thought Aiden’s name. Time and distance had done nothing to dull the pain. Nor had the considerable amount of alcohol he’d consumed in an attempt to numb it. There were few reprieves to be found from something that cut this deep. The flesh would knit, but the soul—the soul was another matter.

He tried to suppress it. He tried to keep his head close to the ground, to focus on whatever contracts he could manage to pick up, but the thought remained.

Aiden.

As he sat licking his wounds at an inn, making a point of ignoring the sneers and stares of the other patrons, he wondered. As he swung his sword, bisecting yet another drowner, he wondered. As he rode along the rocky path, bitter rain pelting his skin like a storm of tiny knives, he wondered.

_A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart._

O’Dimm’s words echoed through his head even when he tried not to think about that chance meeting in the dead of night. Aiden’s face glimmered back at him through a veil of smoke. And eventually…well, eventually curiosity got the best of him.

Vesemir would have told him that desperation makes men clumsy and stupid. That it makes them grasp for things that aren’t there, accept money from people they shouldn’t, and eventually trip and fall under the sharp of a witcher’s blade. But Vesemir wasn’t here anymore. And Lambert had had decades of practice at ignoring what he had to say.

The crossroads looked as good a place as any. It sat beside a field of decaying sunflowers between two ramshackle villages in the east of what had once been Temeria. The paths that converged there were small, barely more than cow trails, with shoots of grass and weeds intermittently trying to force their way through the packed earth and reclaim it as their own. The sign on the post was crudely painted. Lambert rolled his eyes upon noticing that the name of the nearest town was badly misspelled.

Still, O’Dimm hadn’t specified any place in particular. Only a crossroads. And despite its failings, this certainly fit the description. The harvest moon hung high in the sky overhead. A chill wind whistled through the field, sending shivers down Lambert’s spine. 

He stepped forward, looking up at the sign, and feeling like a complete jackass, spoke. “Gaunter O’Dimm—I’m here to make a deal.”

No voice answered. No merchant appeared. Lambert ground his teeth, looking at the signpost, which stared resolutely back at him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he muttered under his breath. Maybe he’d just imagined the entire fucking thing. It certainly sounded far-fetched. _Oh yes, a mirror merchant approached me in a piss-poor tavern in the dead of night and offered to resurrect my dead lover._ If he’d told Eskel that, the other man would have laughed his ass off and insisted Lambert had had too much to drink.

And maybe he had. But he didn’t have anywhere else to be, and some offers were just too lucrative to pass up. He did his best not to think about the fact that that sentiment was what had brought him and Aiden together in the first place.

Lambert sank to his knees in front of the sign, closed his eyes, and waited.

~~~~~~

He awoke to the sound of someone whistling.

Lambert’s eyes flew open to find O’Dimm sitting before him, perched lightly on top of the signpost. He wore a wide grin on his face and was eating an apple, lounging about as if he were sitting in a Novigrad salon rather than on top of a splintery pole in the middle of nowhere.

“Ah, awake at last.” O’Dimm took a bite of his apple.

“Took your damn time,” Lambert growled, standing and shaking the pins and needles from his legs.

“I had business elsewhere. I’m a very busy man.”

“How much business could a mirror merchant possibly have?”

“You’d be surprised,” O’Dimm said with a smirk. “I understand you’d like to take me up on my offer.”

“That depends.” Lambert eyed the merchant warily. “Got a few questions to ask you first.”

O’Dimm reclined, seemingly against nothing, and made an open gesture. “Ask away.”

“What are you, really?”

“Hmm.” O’Dimm tossed his apple lightly from hand to hand. “Not some common mage, I assure you. That will have to suffice.”

“It doesn’t.” Lambert crossed his arms. O’Dimm shrugged.

“Then that’s more your issue than mine. If I recall correctly, you’re the one who summoned me for this little meeting.”

Lambert wrestled with himself for a moment and then sighed in defeat. “Look…these things you’re claiming you can do—they’re just not possible. There’s not a sorcerer alive who can bring someone back from the dead. Not really, at least. I’m not a fan of necromancy. I’ve seen it done. It’s ugly.”

O’Dimm made a dismissive gesture. “No necromancy involved. This I swear.”

Lambert narrowed his eyes. O’Dimm sighed.

“My dear misguided witcher. I’ve already told you that I’m not some simple mage. In point of fact, I detest magic.”

“Then what the hell are you proposing?”

“Perhaps a small demonstration is in order?” He held out the apple he’d been eating on his palm. “A token, given freely. Watch closely.” He held up his other hand, and with the greatest of aplomb, snapped his fingers.

The apple decayed and collapsed before Lambert’s very eyes, its glossy red skin and crisp flesh shriveling and curling in on itself as spots of fuzzy white mold feasted on the remains. The color bled from it as it disintegrated into a pile of unrecognizable mush.

Lambert eyed O’Dimm warily. This was beyond the bounds of any illusion spell he’d yet encountered. He raised his hand to the medallions at his neck, but they were still as the grave. Not magic, then. Or magic that was completely different from anything else in this world.

He still wasn’t buying it that easily. “And?” he said, shrugging. “Doesn’t exactly prove you can resurrect a human.”

O’Dimm smiled. “You’ve quite the scruples for a lawless brigand.”

“Man’s gotta have standards.”

“Very well, then.” O’Dimm snapped his fingers once more, and the color returned to the pile of apple mush he still held in his outstretched palm. It plumped and reformed into its original configuration as the mold colonies shrunk and then vanished altogether. Within seconds it looked as if it had just been plucked from the branch. A drop of juice ran from the bite mark he’d left in it. Lambert bristled.

“You’re wise not to trust me,” O’Dimm remarked, taking a bite of the newly resurrected fruit. “But I shall leave you with this—you’ve summoned me here, to this crossroads, on this night, for a reason. If you should leave this place without our having struck a deal, there will be no third opportunity. I have been most accommodating, Lambert. But my patience wears thin.”

“If I accept…” Lambert pondered to himself for a moment. “What do you get out of this?”

O’Dimm chuckled. “Good, you’re a fast learner. Nothing for free in this or any life.” He finished eating the apple and tossed the core carelessly aside into the sunflower field. “I’ve found over the years that witchers can be very useful. Immensely frustrating, but very useful nonetheless. Were you a mortal man, I’d demand payment up front. In your case, however…let us say that when all is said and done you shall owe me a favor. A favor I will one day come to collect.”

“And Aiden?” Lambert said warily. “I burned his body. There’s nothing to reanimate.”

“He shall be as he was the moment his heart stopped beating. You have my word.”

The sensible part of Lambert, the part that sounded like Vesemir, was screaming at him to walk away. He did what he did best and ignored it. Nodding slowly, he unfolded his arms. “Deal.”

“Magnificent.” O’Dimm lightly dismounted the signpost and approached Lambert, extending a hand. On his face was a jovial grin that Lambert couldn’t quite trust. “Then let us shake and make it official.”

Lambert hesitated for a moment and then reciprocated. As soon as their palms made contact, he found that he could no longer move his arm. It was bound to O’Dimm’s as surely as if their skin had been melted together in a crucible. The wind whispered around them, rustling through his hair, the fabric of his gambeson, O’Dimm’s yellow tunic. A band of fiery runes formed, encircling the place where their hands were joined, and snaked its way up Lambert’s arm.

When it reached his shoulder, he felt a sudden, searing pain. He gritted his teeth and cursed violently, trying and failing to release his grip. O’Dimm’s smile grew wider. The runes flared and vanished. Lambert tore his hand from the merchant’s grip and pulled back his sleeve to discover a strange mark branded into the flesh of his forearm.

“What the hell is this for?” he hissed.

“Think of it as…collateral. Something to remind you of your debt until you’ve fulfilled your end of the deal.”

“Whoreson.” Lambert rubbed the burn mark and spat into the dirt. “Where’s Aiden?”

“What were you expecting? That I’d shove life into some fetid corpse and deposit it at your feet? Come now,” O’Dimm said reproachfully. “Have patience.”

Lambert glared at him murderously. 

“Often, the best place to look for something lost is where you last found it,” O’Dimm said cryptically. He bowed with a flourish. “Always a pleasure to be of service.”

The man of glass turned on his heel and stroke off into the darkness before Lambert could say another word. The sunflowers rustled uneasily on their stalks. Lambert traced the brand on his arm with his fingertip and winced.

_Where you last found it_ …

Lambert glanced to the east, toward the weak rays of the rising sun that were just beginning to announce themselves on the horizon, and swore.

~~~~~~

Ellander.

Lambert had sworn to himself time and time again that he wasn’t going back. He couldn’t. The very cobblestones of the city were steeped in pain and blood—Aiden’s blood—and Lambert’s bitter tears. The very thought of it made a weight drop into his stomach like a ball of lead.

He’d puzzled over what O’Dimm had said several times, trying to come up with any answer other than the one he already knew was right. Eventually, he’d had no choice but to accept that he had to go back, if for no other reason than to see if the merchant had cheated him. It took a long draught on a bottle of pepper vodka before he could even bear to turn his horse in the right direction, but turn he did, and with a reluctant spur of his heels they were off.

A sick feeling settled in his heart, growing stronger with every passing hour as the walls of the city in the distance slowly began to rise above the lush green foothills of the Mahakam Mountains. What if O’Dimm had been telling the truth? What if he really found what he was looking for in Ellander? What then?

He was almost at the city gates before he realized that he honestly didn’t know.

A light drizzle began to fall as Lambert set out into the winding streets of Ellander. His feet knew where to carry him. He was numb to the bone, his mind already trying to protect itself from an anticipated wound. The putrid scent of the fish market slowly gave way as he passed by, down more residential streets, brushing shoulders with finely-dressed townspeople who shot him looks of disdain as they walked past.

The rain was falling in earnest now, thinning the crowds that had filled the city streets just a moment ago as it pelted down on the cobblestone. Lambert found himself emerging into an almost empty square bordered with townhouses and upscale shops. He scanned it briefly, looking for the next side street to turn down, and froze, his heart pounding in his chest.

Even years later, even after blood and pyres and bitter ash, even at great distance and partially obscured by the downpour that had by now soaked him almost to the skin, Lambert would recognize that silhouette anywhere.

“Aiden,” he choked.

The hooded man perusing the notice board on the other side of the square turned and looked over his shoulder, a flash of golden eyes meeting with Lambert’s own.

He smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To every single one of you that commented on Silver for Monsters begging me to bring Aiden back somehow--know that this is entirely your fault. You have no one but yourselves to blame for what's coming.


	3. From the Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the amazing [bookscorpion!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)

Lambert stood frozen.

He couldn’t decide whether to cross the square and embrace Aiden or to turn on his heel and run. Was it truly him? For all the things O’Dimm had said, there was a not insignificant part of him that had dismissed this as impossible.

And yet here he stood, after all these years, standing just feet away and looking remarkably solid. Lambert clenched his teeth so hard he thought they might break.

Aiden had already seen him. There was no turning away now. Not after all the trouble he’d gone to in order to make this possible. Not after all the trouble he was still likely to get into because of it. Lambert stepped numbly forward, forgetting even the torrential summer rain that had drenched him to the skin. He stepped ankle-deep in a puddle and ignored the gush of water that poured into his boots.

Two medallions. Two medallions still hung around his neck, and on Aiden’s there were none. It was him, alive and in the flesh. Lambert raised a hand unconsciously to the silver cat’s head on its chain and squeezed it tightly.

Aiden turned as he approached, abandoning the notice board with its paltry offerings. He’d clearly been listening to Lambert’s footsteps as he crossed the square. “Took you long enough,” he said by way of greeting. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere—”

He broke off, his brow furrowing as he took in Lambert’s stricken expression. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

~~~~~~

It took the entirety of the walk to a seedy inn on the outskirts of town and a not insignificant amount of liquor for Lambert to even begin to form his thoughts into words. He held his mug with a white-knuckled grip as his soaked clothing dripped steadily onto the tavern floor.

“You’re angry with me,” Aiden said simply, his eyes downcast. “You’ve every right to be. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”

Lambert said nothing. Aiden looked as if he were wrestling with himself.

“I knew how you felt about the Law of Surprise, and I invoked it anyway. I wanted to explain myself, but I know the reasoning doesn’t matter. It took a long time after you left for me to come to terms with the fact that this, all of this, was my fault. It took much longer for me to start looking for you. I’ve searched everywhere, you know.”

Lambert was taken aback. Did he really think—how could he not know—

“How _did_ you find me?” Aiden said, drinking deeply from his own mug and grimacing. “I thought I’d have to chase you halfway across the Continent.”

Lambert’s hands were shaking. He pressed them down hard against the table. “You died,” he blurted.

Aiden abruptly stopped talking and made an incredulous expression. “What?”

“You died,” Lambert repeated, softer this time. “Jad Karadin shoved a sword through your heart and put a fucking crossbow bolt through your eye, and I burned your body, and then I spent a very long time trying to die, but I didn’t.”

Aiden blanched at the mention of Karadin’s name. “Jad—How do you—”

“I took the whoreson’s head off his shoulders.” Lambert looked away. His stomach churned in a way that had nothing to do with the spirit he was drinking. 

Aiden blinked and then swallowed. “I don’t feel dead.” He gestured down at himself. “I’m sitting right here.”

With shaking fingers, Lambert reached up and unclasped the cat’s head medallion from around his neck. He laid it on the table between them with a soft thunk. Aiden stared at it.

“Got this, too,” Lambert muttered, pulling a piece of battered parchment from his pocket. It had seen better days; its surface was marred with lines and water marks from having been thrown away in a fit of anger years ago, and the top corner was stained deeply with a rust-colored pigment that, even after all these years, still smelt strongly of Aiden’s blood. He held it out.

Aiden took it gingerly and unfolded it, his expression inscrutable. When he finished reading it, he set it down next to the medallion.

“How long?”

“Four years.” Lambert shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Maybe more.”

“Four years,” Aiden whispered.

For a moment, the silence between them felt like an uncrossable void. It sucked in all else, deafening Lambert’s ears to the sizzle of bacon cooking on the fire, to the dull roar of the bookie shouting over the fistfight that was happening in the corner, to the ragged sound of his own breathing.

A log on the fire crackled and popped loudly, bursting the moment like a soap bubble. Lambert swallowed with difficulty.

“What do you remember?”

Aiden shook his head. “Not a damn thing.” His cheek was wet. “If what you say is true, and given the contents of this letter, I find it hard to deny that it is—how did I come to be sitting here?” He touched his left hand with his right, tracing the lines on his palm with one finger. “I feel like I’m alive. I don’t have any sense of time having passed, but clearly it has.” He looked at Lambert sorrowfully. “You look like shit.”

“Feel like it, too,” Lambert said hoarsely.

Aiden listened with remarkable calm as Lambert recounted the events of that night at the crossroads. When at last he finished, the beer that was left in his mug had gone warm and sour. He drank it anyway, willing the alcohol to chase away the unidentifiable feeling that was crawling around in the back of his skull.

“Not that I’m not grateful,” Aiden said eventually, having pondered the details of Lambert’s tale, “But it sounds like you’ve chosen to deal with a very dangerous man. The gods only know what he’ll ask you to do when he finally comes to collect.”

“I know.” Lambert’s shoulders sagged. “Tell me, though—if it’d been you, would you have done the same?”

Aiden thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes. I think that I would.” He smiled ruefully. “Regardless of the circumstances, it’s good to see you.”

“Yeah.” Lambert sighed. The shaking had lessened, but it was still there. “I’d…I’d almost forgotten your face. What you sounded like. It’s good to hear your voice.” His eyes stung, and he wiped at them angrily.

Aiden reached across the table and placed a hand on top of Lambert’s. “I’m here.”

“I think I need a stronger drink,” Lambert said wetly.

“Coming right up.”

~~~~~~

The fire had burned down to embers in its grate and the rest of the tavern patrons had either passed out from too much drink or gone home for the night. The witchers sat alone at their table in the corner of the darkened room, sharing a bottle of spirit between them.

Four years was a long time. It had taken several hours for Lambert to recount the events that had transpired between their separation in Kovir and his ill-gotten deal with Master Mirror. By the time he finally stopped talking, his throat was hoarse and his jaw ached from the tension. He’d spent a very long time trying to repress these memories or drown them out with alcohol. Dredging them up on purpose was painful.

“The Wild Hunt.” Aiden whistled through his teeth. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“You’re telling me.” Lambert took a swig from the bottle. He’d purposely left his arrangement with Keira out of his recounting. There were still some things he wasn’t ready to tell Aiden about yet. If his relationship with the sorceress had seemed like an offense to Aiden’s memory at the time it had begun, it certainly felt like an offense to his actual person now that he was solid and sitting a few inches away. He did his best to swallow his guilt.

“I’m sorry about Vesemir.” Aiden took his hand and squeezed gently. “I know how hard it was for me when Kiyan disappeared. It must have been horrible for you.”

“At least the whoreson paid,” Lambert said, gritting his teeth as he remembered exactly how little relief killing Karadin had given him for Aiden’s death.

“Have you gone back since then?”

Lambert shook his head. “Don’t think I can. Kaer Morhen is abandoned now, anyway.”

“A shame,” Aiden sighed. “So much of what we are has already been lost. Soon there will be nothing at all.”

Lightning flashed through the windows of the inn, followed rapidly by a booming clap of thunder. The strike had been close; Lambert could feel the reverberations through his boots. In an instant, he was transported worlds away, to another inn, another stormy night, another mug of sour beer and bile rising in his throat.

Kovir. The last night he’d seen Aiden alive.

Lambert had been angrier than he’d ever been. Had been prepared to hurt Aiden. To make him suffer. It came back to him in waves. Icy rain pelting down on him with a vengeance, soaking through his armor. The anxious nickering of his horse. Aiden’s face, obscured by his hood and the darkness as he bowed his head and stepped aside. Rivulets of water running down his face like tears—

“Lambert?”

The moment shattered like glass. Lambert came back to himself breathing hard, his white-knuckled fist pressed hard against the splintery wood of the table. Aiden looked at him with concern.

“Lambert, what’s wrong?”

Lambert fought to get his breathing under control. “This. This is wrong. All of it.” He clenched his teeth. “Why the fuck are we here, Aiden? Why am I sitting here across from you talking about Vesemir like nothing happened? Why are we pretending that in the morning we’re going to pick up a contract like nothing’s changed and ride off to Vizima? _Duvvelsheyss!”_

He slammed his hands down. At a nearby table, a drunk startled awake, looked around blearily, and promptly passed out again.

“I…” Aiden trailed off, staring into the bottom of his mug like he might find answers there.

“I had a lot of time to think after you died,” Lambert said. “You never told me much about your past. I managed to dig some stuff up while I was looking for Karadin, and it didn’t exactly paint a pretty picture. It pisses me the hell off that the man who had you killed knew a damn sight more about you than I did.” He stopped and swallowed against the hard knot in his throat. “I’m not honestly sure what I expected to happen if this worked. I’m not sure if I even _wanted_ it to work.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything. Lambert stared at Aiden. Aiden wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“You never said you loved me.”

Aiden flinched as if Lambert had struck him.

“I felt that you did,” Lambert said, looking down at his own clasped hands. “Or maybe I just saw what I wanted to see. I don’t know. It’s really fucking hard for me to reconcile the idea of you loving me with some of the things that you’ve done.”

“I did love you,” Aiden said quietly, still looking away. “Still do.”

“Then why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Aiden swallowed. “I don’t know.”

For some reason, Lambert felt as if a weight had been lifted from his chest. Finally speaking the words, being able to direct some of the vitriol he’d been carrying in his heart at its source after all these years, was cathartic. There was a not insignificant part of him that still wanted to hurt Aiden. Judging by the look on his face, he’d succeeded.

Relief was followed by guilt in short order. Lambert sighed, buried his face in his hands, rubbed his eyes.

“Look, I…”

“I know.”

Lambert sighed through his teeth. “This is pretty fucked up, isn’t it?”

Aiden finally looked up, a sad smile on his face. “That’s one way of putting it.” He reached across the table and covered Lambert’s hand with his own. “I missed you, you know.”

“I missed you too.” Lambert’s eyes stung and he wiped at them in frustration.

“It’s late,” Aiden remarked somewhat unnecessarily as the last ember in the fireplace crumbled to ash. “We should get some rest. Start fresh in the morning.”

Lambert nodded numbly and let himself be led up the stairs and into a sparsely furnished room that contained only a bed with a rough straw mattress and a rickety table with a bowl and pitcher for washing set on it. He shed his swordbelts and gambeson and hung them from the bedpost alongside Aiden’s, and then sat on the edge of the mattress and tugged his boots from his feet. Aiden lay sprawled out beside him.

“Come here,” he said softly, shifting to the side and holding out an arm. Lambert lay down in the space he’d created, pillowing his head on Aiden’s chest. Aiden pulled him close, and Lambert let out a shaking sigh.

“Are you still going to be here when I wake up?” Lambert felt foolish voicing his fear aloud, but he had to nonetheless.

Aiden pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, this chapter hurt quite a lot to write. I'm delighted to have Aiden back in the picture, but _damn,_ there's so much to unpack here. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please consider leaving me a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts. <3


	4. The Voice of Reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by [bookscorpion!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)

Lambert awoke before the sun to the sound of someone vomiting.

It took a moment for his brain to finish processing where he was and who he was _with._ He was pervaded by a sense that something was very, very wrong, but he wasn’t sure why. He reached instinctively for his sword, but it wasn’t at his back.

The events of the previous day hit him like a brick wall as he looked across the room with bleary eyes to see his swordbelts hanging from the bedpost and Aiden kneeling on the floor over a chipped basin.

“Shit,” he mumbled, shoving himself into a seated position and rubbing his eyes.

Witchers’ bodies were exceptionally good at metabolizing poisons, alcohol included. It took an enormous amount of very strong liquor to get a witcher drunk. It took far, far, more than that to make a witcher sick. Lambert was sure Aiden hadn’t had that much. He hadn’t been _sober_ when they’d gone to sleep, but he certainly hadn’t been drunk.

He dragged himself out of bed, still blinking sleep from his eyes, and sat beside Aiden on the floor. “What’s wrong?”

“I…don’t…know,” Aiden panted, spitting into the bowl. 

Lambert swallowed the lump of disgust in his throat and peered at its contents. It was full almost to the brim with what appeared to be everything Aiden had ingested over the past day. He breathed steadily through his nose and willed his own stomach contents to stay where they were.

Aiden’s hands trembled violently, threatening to drop the basin. Lambert took it from him and set it on the floor.

“Let me see,” he said, lifting Aiden’s chin with his fingers and examining him as best he could. His skin was waxen and covered with a sheen of foul-smelling sweat. The whites of his eyes were shot through with blood, and his pupils were narrow to the point of slits. His entire body was wracked with tremors.

Lambert grimaced. Not good. “Has this ever happened before?”

“No,” Aiden managed. He looked as if he’d like very much to be sick again. “Must have been something I ate.”

“Or it might have something to do with the fact that you were dead until yesterday.”

“Maybe this is normal,” Aiden said weakly.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Lambert wracked his brain for ideas. Vesemir. Vesemir would have known what to do. He swore to himself under his breath. He didn’t have the first fucking clue where to start. Ideally, they needed a sorceress, but he only knew the whereabouts of one and there was no way in hell he was going to Keira for this. And the odds of finding a village witch in Ellander were vanishingly small.

There was really only one place they could go. He pulled on his boots, slung his swordbelts over his shoulder, and hauled a protesting Aiden to his feet.

“Where are you taking me?” Aiden’s face was completely drained of color. Lambert had to support most of his weight as they made their way clumsily down the stairs.

“To someone who can help.”

~~~~~~

The Temple of Melitele looked very much like a city in its own right these days. The main temple itself was half-buried in the rock of the cliff side, its inner chambers having been carved directly from the stone of the mountain. The parts that were visible were embellished with creamy white marble from the mines and quarries in Mahakam. Dozens of smaller buildings had sprung up around it over the years; a combination of low stone huts and wooden houses.

A wall constructed of round stones that had been unearthed from nearby fields and stuck together with thick mortar surrounded the compound. It opened in a wide arch where it met the road to reveal a path to the temple doors, which was lined with enormous polar trees. Their leaves had already turned the striking yellow of Quebrith in the cooling autumn air. 

Chickens, having been left free to roam, scratched in the yards. Grey-robed aspiring priestesses flitted by like so many moths. Some of them paused to glance, wide-eyed, and the witchers, while others went pointedly out of their way not to acknowledge their presence.

Aiden, mercifully, had stopped throwing up—although Lambert was fairly certain that that was more because there was nothing left in him to expel than because he was improving. He was pale as death, and the hand that dug into Lambert's shoulder was cold and clammy. He'd regained a modicum of strength during the journey outside the city walls, but Lambert was still supporting most of his weight.

They passed through the great double doors and into the cool, dark interior of the temple. Lambert dragged Aiden across smooth tiles of colorful marble and deposited him on the first bench he found. His gaze lit upon one priestess in particular, who was observing the two of them with silent interest. Her round face was dotted with freckles and framed by a swath of red hair.

"Need to see your high priestess," Lambert said urgently. "It's important. Tell her we're friends of Geralt of Rivia. Can you do that?"

The girl nodded mutely and vanished with a flutter of grey robes.

"I still don't think this is necessary," Aiden said weakly.

"Please shut up." Lambert pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're not exactly in a position to argue."

Aiden tipped his head back against the wall, closed his eyes, and sighed. It struck Lambert suddenly how much he looked like a corpse. A fresh corpse, but a corpse nonetheless. His skin crawled.

The red-haired priestess reappeared a few moments later just as silently as she'd left. Following close behind her was an older woman in sweeping robes the color of charcoal. Her head was covered, but a few unruly wisps of grey had found their way outside her wimple. The lines on her face betrayed her years, but she stood straight and there was fierce intelligence behind her piercing green eyes.

"Oh, praise Melitele," she said, upon laying eyes on the two of them. "I was afraid 'friends of Geralt' meant that damnable shit of a troubadour."

Against his best efforts, Lambert found himself liking her.

The priestess leaned in to get a better look at Aiden and clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "What a mess. Iola, we'll be needing a room, some hot water, and my chest of tinctures. You know the one—yes. Off you go."

Iola hurried off to carry out her priestess's orders without a word.

"She's awfully quiet," Aiden remarked hoarsely.

"She doesn't speak," the priestess said in a matter-of-fact tone. "By choice; she's taken a vow. Let's dispense with pleasantries, shall we? I'm sure you've gathered that I am the high priestess of this temple. You may call me Nenneke."

"Lambert. This is Aiden."

Nenneke nodded. "Follow me, please. Up you come."

Lambert hauled Aiden to a standing position and followed Nenneke as she led them through a labyrinth of corridors and tight staircases. They came eventually to a small room with unadorned stone walls. It was empty save for a simple cot, a chair that looked as if it might collapse if it was sat on too forcefully, and a low writing desk.

"You can leave him here," Nenneke said, gesturing at the bed.

Aiden sank down on it gratefully and pressed his hands to his thighs in an ineffective attempt to still their shaking. 

Lambert crossed his arms and tried to stand somewhere out of the way. This wasn't the first time he'd found himself in such a place, and it likely wouldn't be the last, but he was uncomfortable with religious folk. He'd stopped believing in gods when they'd seen fit to trade his life for his miserable drunk of a father's. If they were going to forsake him, he saw no reason why he shouldn't return the favor.

Iola returned in short order with the requested supplies. Lambert leaned against the rough stone wall and tried to look unconcerned as Nenneke bustled about, digging through the little velvet-lined chest and pulling out vial after vial of tinctures and powdered herbs. The hay-sweet scent of celandine and a sharp, almost caustic plant he didn't recognize stung his nose.

"You came to the right place," Nenneke remarked as she ground the herbs with a pestle. "Not many healers have experience treating witchers. I may be the only one this side of the Pontar."

"Lucky Geralt's gotten himself cut up so much," Lambert said ruefully.

Nenneke made a dismissive noise. "Geralt isn't the only witcher who's turned up on my doorstep over the years. Iola, put a cold compress on his forehead. He looks like he's knocking on death's door."

The priestess complied, wetting a cotton rag from the bucket of clean water she'd brought and placing it on Aiden's forehead. As she did so, her hand lightly brushed his skin.

It happened in an instant. She visibly recoiled from Aiden’s supine form, snatching her hand back as if she’d been burned. She did not cry out, but the expression of intense horror on her face said more than words possibly could. 

Nenneke froze. 

Iola turned to look at her for one paralyzing second and then fled the room as if the hounds of the Wild Hunt themselves were nipping at her heels.

Nenneke took one deep, centering breath, and put down her mortar and pestle.

"What the fuck just happened?" Lambert growled apprehensively.

"I think a more pertinent question would be: what have you not told me?" Nenneke said, the expression on her face belying her calm tone.

"What do you mean?"

"Iola is an oracle. She can't always control it, but she has been known to prophecy on occasion. What's happened to him?" Nenneke gestured at Aiden. "Has he been cursed?"

"Not exactly," Aiden groaned from the bed, covering his eyes with one hand.

"He was dead up until a couple of days ago." Lambert figured it was best to be as blunt as possible. Nenneke looked as if she might have him cut up and fed to the pigs if he was less than truthful.

Nenneke shook her head. "I may not be a sorceress, but I would know necromancy if I saw it. This is something else."

"You're right. It is."

Nenneke's eyes were piercing.

Lambert sighed. "You're not going to like what I have to say."

"Say it, and then I'll decide for myself if I like it or not." Nenneke crossed her arms.

Lambert shifted uncomfortably. "Aiden died a long time ago. I mourned him. I burnt his body. I did my best to move the fuck on with my life, but as it turns out, I wasn't very good at it. And then one night I met a man who claimed he could perform miracles." He glanced at Aiden. "He made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He held up his end of the deal. And now I apparently owe him a favor." 

He rolled up his sleeve and showed the priestess the brand O'Dimm had left on his arm. Her expression was unreadable.

A few moments passed in silence, and then Nenneke sighed heavily. "I suppose I don't have to tell you that you're a damned fool and your stupidity is going to get you killed."

"You wouldn't be the first."

Nenneke gestured at Aiden. "I don't know what this is, or what kind of force is sustaining him, but like any spell I'd imagine it will decay over time. As will he."

"What did Iola see when she touched him?"

Nenneke shook her head. "I got a glimpse, and only a glimpse, but it wasn't pretty."

Lambert swore violently. He went over and over his meeting with O'Dimm in his head—the mark on his arm, the words he'd used, but he didn't understand _why_ —

"Fuck," he whispered, dread settling into his stomach like a ball of lead.

Nenneke raised an eyebrow.

_"He shall be as he was the instant his heart stopped beating."_

Aiden, who had until this point had been remarkably calm, visibly blanched. "That...cannot be good."

"Can you do anything to help him?" Desperation bled into Lambert's voice.

Nenneke shook her head gravely. "I'm a healer. I can mend wounds and treat infections, and I can do a small amount of magic. This is beyond my capabilities. I can't cure death."

"What about the vomiting?" Aiden propped himself up on his elbows.

"I can't say for certain, but my educated guess is that you are no longer able to digest the things you eat. The symptoms do seem to have abated."

"Great. So everything's fine, then," Lambert said, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

"Do not mistake my hospitality for weakness." Nenneke's eyes flashed. "We may not age the same, but I'm certain that I'm old enough to be your mother. Dull your tongue before you cut yourself on it."

Lambert crossed his arms and stared resolutely down at his boots.

"He's sorry," Aiden interjected. "He's just too proud to say it."

"I'll have to take your word for it."

A few moments passed in silence. The air in the room felt heavy enough to cut with a blade.

"So what now?" Lambert said quietly.

"I don't know," Nenneke admitted. "You could seek out a sorceress, or you could try to persuade the man who did this to fix it. I doubt you'll be successful, though."

Lambert sighed through his teeth. "Great."

"I don't envy you, witcher." Nenneke put her vials of herbs and tinctures back in their box. "It sounds like you've chosen to deal with a profoundly dangerous being." She closed the lid and the latch snicked shut. "The consequences, I'm sure, will be worse than you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do always love writing Ellander, and I especially loved writing Nenneke! She's such a fun character to work with and I was super excited to have her in this chapter. 
> 
> As always, if you enjoyed the update I'd love to hear your thoughts! Your lovely comments keep me going <3
> 
> [8/12: Please ignore the fact that Iola is supposed to be dead--I love her and I hadn't gotten up to that point in the books yet when I wrote this]


	5. Things Immaterial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

_The consequences, I'm sure, will be worse than you know._

Nenneke's words echoed through Lambert's head as the witchers began to make their way south. He'd tried his damnedest to think of any other way to do this, and after a few days of wracking his brain, he'd come up empty. There was no avoiding it. If a skilled healer couldn't help them, then their only real option was a sorceress. And as far as sorceresses went, Lambert only knew the precise whereabouts of one.

This was going to suck.

Aiden, for the most part, seemed to be in good spirits. He looked on wistfully when Lambert ate his meals, but the lack of food hadn't seemed to harm him in the slightest. As Nenneke had posited, once he'd purged everything he'd ingested he was right as rain. Still pale, and still somewhat dead, but well enough to travel and well enough to fight if it came down to it.

It was a long ride to Nazair. It would take them the better part of a week to get to Keira, even if they didn't stop along the way. The coin purse in Lambert's pocket was already much too light for his liking, though, and even if Aiden didn't have to eat, their horses still did. That meant they needed more gold. And that meant they needed to find work.

So a contract it was, then. The witchers rode south a ways, away from Ellander, checking notice boards as they passed them, but largely came up empty. The notices posted were of the usual banal fodder— _looking to trade three empty flour sacks for a pint of goats' milk; a thousand curses upon Gemma, that pox-ridden whore; let it be known that Farin of Mulbrydale is a liar and a thief; lessons in Nilfgaardian, only twenty-five crowns._ None of it was witchers' work.

Lambert and Aiden rode on as their supply of coin slowly bled away, making camp at night by roadsides rather than squander what was left on a bed at an inn. They managed to ford the Yaruga at Dillingen without too much trouble; thankfully the weather was merciful and the water was low. Lambert subsisted on hard tack and strips of salted meat. The food was disappointing, but he'd never let that bother him before. The witchers carried on in that fashion, awaking each morning with their hair thick with dew drops and the pitiful fire gone to embers and ash, until they eventually happened upon a village.

Calling it a village might have been too charitable, Lambert thought in retrospect. It was more a loose collection of shacks huddled together as if for warmth, with one sad well and an equally sad garden with one beehive and a few lackluster potato plants poking their way hopelessly out of the dirt.

No one approached the witchers. That in itself wasn't strange; Lambert's prickly demeanor didn't exactly inspire friendship in people, and even without that their golden eyes would have been enough to ward off most peasants. But neither were there any signs of life. No pale, wide-eyed faces pressed up against the windows of the little huts to gawk at them as they passed. What looked to have been the communal cooking fire was naught but ash, and cold ash at that. There was a thick layer of scum and dead leaves in the bucket that was used to draw up the well water.

"Something's not right," Aiden cautioned Lambert as they wandered among the ramshackle houses. "I can't hear anything."

Lambert had noticed the absence too. There were no heartbeats of peasants hiding fearful in their homes. No padding of dogs' feet on packed earth. Not even the low-pitched, molasses-like thumping of an overburdened cow's heart. He crept forward cautiously, silently, with one hand firmly on the grip of his silver sword.

The stench was insidious. It came on slowly and then swelled until the sickening sweetness of it overwhelmed Lambert's senses. The air was hot and weighed down on him like a sweat-soaked blanket. He prayed desperately for a breeze that would not come.

He already knew what had happened before he passed the last house in the little settlement and found them.

A dozen bodies—some old, some young, some infants—lay sprawled in the wheat fields beyond. They had fallen while running. They were twisted and contorted in unnatural ways. Lily-white throats were torn through and splashed with crimson that congealed in sticky rivulets. Chunks of meat were missing from arms, legs, abdomens. Lips had turned purple and bloated. Grey-green viscera glistened under the hammer of the beating sun. Some faces wore expressions of terror and agony. Some faces were gone entirely.

The whole of it was sickening.

Aiden bent down, covering his nose with the sleeve of his gambeson, and examined one of the corpses. "Throat torn out," he said dispassionately. "Looks like teeth. Big ones." He gently rolled the body over with his boot. "Clothing's torn, too. Especially the trousers."

Lambert grimaced at the crow intently plucking the sticky remains of a blue eye from the body closest to him. "From the look of things it's been about a week." He swallowed the bile that was rising in his throat. "This one's been torn open, too."

"Wolves?"

"Wolves would have gnawed the bones clean. Look around—no fur, no prints." He crouched down and peered closely at the corpse of a little girl. Her plaited hair was matted through with dried blood and gritty earth. Lambert shook his head. "No. I know what did this. And I'd bet my balls there's a contract out for it."

The witchers left the little village behind as fast as they could, desperate to get away from the stench of the garden of bodies that was planted in the field. They lingered only long enough for Lambert to gather the runty potatoes from the garden and slice off what honeycomb he found in the hive. The bees were long gone, but the honey still tasted sweet. He wrapped his spoils in some scraps of waxed cloth and tucked them into his saddlebags.

There was a larger settlement a few hours' ride from the slaughter. Lambert and Aiden reached it just as the sun was going down, which turned out to be a stroke of luck because two soldiers in the role of guardsmen closed and latched the gate as soon as they'd ridden through. Their armor was black and bore the crest of the great sun.

"Nilfgaard," Lambert muttered under his breath. Aiden nodded.

This town was large enough at least to have a wall surrounding it, and that meant that there was an inn. Lambert and Aiden tied up their horses at the post outside and made sure that there was clean water in the trough for them. Aiden patted his bay on the nose and it snorted in thanks.

The notice board here was rife with more of the same, but it also bore fruit after a few minutes of searching. A crisp sheet of thick parchment, bearing a heavy seal in black and gold wax, stood out among the tattered and faded notices that surrounded it. Lambert tore it from its nail and read it.

_By order of His Imperial Highness, Emhyr var Emreis:_

_A contract has been issued for the extermination of the pack of wild beasts that has been ravaging the settlements on the outskirts of Coldwater. Whosoever both eliminates the threat and provides a trophy taken from the beasts as proof of their destruction shall be paid a sum of no less than two hundred crowns._

_Please inquire at the barracks for more information._

Lambert shoved the notice into Aiden's hands with a grin on his face. "Easy. Let's go kill some monsters."

~~~~~~

Lambert and Aiden spent the better part of the next morning gathering information. From what they'd managed to glean from the innkeep, the attacks had been happening for a few months now. There was a shortage of witchers in the south; Nilfgaard was very efficient at a great deal of things, and one of them was exterminating necrophages. There was rarely any need for their kind under the Black Sun, which was fine by Lambert. He preferred to stay in the far north, where the pay was good and everyone spoke the common tongue.

A segment of the Redanian army had broken off from the whole and made its way here in an attempt to get behind the front lines and surprise the Nilfgaardian regiments marching north from behind. The plan had gone poorly; the Redanian soldiers had based their decision on bad information and ended up in foreign territory with no war to fight. And since there were no enemy soldiers around with which to slake their thirst for blood, they'd taken it out on the civilians.

Barghests often appeared in the aftermath of slaughters such as these, and Lambert was willing to bet a great deal of money that that was what they were dealing with. The contract should be easy enough, particularly with two witchers. All they had to do for now was relax and wait for nightfall.

The two of them whiled away the time until sundown playing Gwent with the tavern patrons. Lambert spent a few crowns on a roast chicken with an apologetic glance to Aiden—it'd been several days since he'd eaten a hot meal, and the smell of it was driving him to madness.

"It's alright," Aiden said, shrugging. "I don't really feel hunger anymore, anyway."

Lambert still felt a pang of guilt when he caught Aiden staring wistfully at him while he ate. He made a mental note to murder O'Dimm five times over if he ever saw him again.

Several hours later and a few crowns richer, the witchers stepped out into the cool dusk as the soldiers dutifully shut and bolted the gate behind them. They didn't go far; the beasts would come to them. There was a large, flat boulder in the middle of the fields surrounding the town, and there they sat, back to back with their silver swords balanced on their laps. Lambert was shit at meditation—always had been, probably always would be—but any form of rest beat staring out at the blandness of their surroundings. His medallion would wake him when the monsters came.

It took longer than expected. The moon was low in the sky once more when the buzz of metal against his chest roused him from his trance. A chorus of growls rose from the grass nearby as Aiden stirred behind him, hand moving to the grip of his sword. The two of them stood as one.

The barghests came flying out of the brush like a pack of ravenous wolves, all gaping maws of ghastly teeth and thick ribbons of slobber running down their throats. They gave off a faint, sickening green light as they ran. Lambert's lips curled into a smile. He drew the sign of Yrden.

As they threw themselves over the line of violet runes to attack the witchers, the beasts flickered into solidity. The first was so eager in its desire to tear into his throat that it impaled itself upon Lambert's sword—all he had to do was hold it out. He glanced over his shoulder at Aiden and broke into a grin. That dance, the lightness on his feet as he whirled and slashed like a weightless force of destruction—it was every bit as rapturous as the first time he'd seen it.   
Lambert cut down two more as Aiden deftly dispatched beast after beast, his form in no way handicapped by the impermanence of his body. Whether its wielder lived or not, the silver did its job all the same.

The Yrden flickered and waned. Lambert shot sparks at one of the barghests, setting its fur alight. It howled and fell to the ground writhing. He plunged his sword into its heart, hard enough to embed the point in the dirt beneath. It abruptly stopped. Another beast replaced it, chomping at the flat of his blade in a desperate bid to get at him. Lambert braced it with both hands and held it off. It could get no closer to him, but nor could he harm it in any way that mattered while it was in an immaterial state.

"Aiden—"

Aiden dropped to a crouch, narrowly avoiding the crush of another's jowls, and drew the sign of Yrden.

Nothing happened. He cursed, dodged another bite, and drew it again.

Nothing.

_"Shit,"_ he yelled.

With a great deal of effort, Lambert managed to brace his sword one-handed. He slammed his hand into the ground, and the circle of runes flared to life once more. He forced the edge of his blade hard into the barghest's mouth as its claws scrabbled against the loose earth, and with a final push managed to drive it deep into its skull. The beast released its grip on the silver and fell to the ground dead.

Aiden appeared visibly shaken by the failure of his sign, but continued fighting nonetheless. The pack of barghests thinned quickly, and with a final plunge of Lambert's sword through the back of one of the lupine beasts, was snuffed out.

Aiden wiped his sword mutely on his sleeve and sheathed it. He stared down at his hands, turning them over in the pale moonlight. He drew the sign of Aard.

Nothing.

He drew the sign of Igni. The grass in front of him remained every bit as unburnt as it had been a moment before. 

Aiden made a fist and clenched his jaw. He strode past Lambert, not saying a word, and set about collecting a trophy from the dead beasts. That done, he turned just as silently and stalked off toward the city gates of Coldwater, leaving Lambert behind him.

~~~~~~

"I'm a liability," Aiden proclaimed mournfully as Lambert ate breakfast at the inn the next morning. With their pockets weighed down pleasantly with gold, he'd given into temptation and bought some bacon and porridge.

Lambert’s stomach turned in a way that had nothing to do with the food. "That's a damn lie, and you know it."

"It's not. We could have both been killed last night because of me. If I can't cast signs, what good am I?"

"We managed just fine. I'm not even wounded."

"Lambert..." Aiden looked as if the gravity of his situation was hitting him all at once. Lambert put down his spoon.

"There are plenty of great fighters who don't have a drop of magic," he said. "And plenty more whose magic is piss-poor. We trained Ciri as a witcher, and even without signs or mutagens she faced down the King of the Wild Hunt by herself and lived."

"She's a child of the Elder Blood. Of course she lived."

"She can't control her powers," Lambert reminded him. "But fine, if you're going to be stubborn about it. Do you remember me telling you about Leo? His fingers were all broken before he could receive the mutagens, and he was never able to form the shape of a sign. He still managed to kick my ass in training more than once."

"And where is he now? Dead."

"Crossbow bolt doesn’t care if you can cast signs or not, smartass." Lambert reached across the table and covered Aiden's hand with his own. "It's only two days' ride to Nazair. We're going to find Keira, and she's going to help us undo this shit. I know this is a lot to deal with, but I need you to get your head out of your ass until then."

Aiden glared at him.

"Fine," Lambert said, throwing up his hands. "I admit it. This is shit. But I need you here, okay? Work's not done yet."

Aiden sighed. "Alright."

"We'll be there by sundown tomorrow," Lambert promised. "And then everything will be over."

Aiden smiled wanly. Lambert prayed, for the first time in decades, that he was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing this chapter! It's been a long time since our boys had a good monster fight.


	6. Thorns of a Violet Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

The capital city of Assengard had once been the crown jewel of Nazair. Its decadence and beauty were famed the world over—only the richest and most successful of merchants could afford to cultivate the rare violet roses that grew there in their gardens, or to adorn their houses with baubles and trinkets carved from the rich veins of cinnabarite that ran through the earth beneath the city's stones.

That had been before the war, though. In its determination to seize Nazair for its own expanding empire, Nilfgaard had razed Assengard almost to the ground.

The Black Ones had never intended to destroy it entirely, but as the conflict grew in scale and ferocity, they lost control of the war. It had taken more than a decade to rebuild the city into even a pale imitation of its former self. Marks of conflict still remained—walls of rubble that had not been cleared, stones marred by ballista bolts and projectiles flung by trebuchet. There were no trees within the walls; they had all burned along with the houses and the people in them. The new buildings that had been constructed could not rival the elegance of what had been destroyed, but with their fluted columns and soaring roofs they were certainly a start.

It had been months since Lambert left Assengard. He'd done so in a fit of rage, simply mounting his horse and riding off one night after a particularly bad argument with Keira. He hadn't intended to return so soon. Her own temper was unlikely to have cooled in the scant weeks since they'd last seen each other. His certainly hadn't. What the argument had been about was unimportant; mutual stubbornness and unwillingness to apologize were what had driven the wedge between them, and neither of those things was likely to change.

Lambert could think of a long list of places he would rather be than here.

"I've never been to Nazair," Aiden remarked as they rode past the ruins of a building that was overtaken almost entirely by sprawling vines of violet roses. "It's beautiful."

Indeed it was, and even Lambert had to admit it. The blossoms were in places as large as dinner plates, a deep indigo in the center and violet at their curling edges. The thorns were large and wicked—beauty and the beast existing as one. The Amell Mountains rose up in the near distance, painted softly in shades of charcoal and blue and purple. Though few structures had survived the war, the blood-red cinnabar cobblestones that paved the city streets were still largely intact, and spiraled through its footprint like vast arteries.

They made their way along these crimson pathways until they came to a square with an enormous fountain carved from a single chunk of cinnabar. By some miracle, it had survived the assault on the city all those years ago, and in recent months had been restored to working order by some of Emhyr's engineers. In its depths carved dryads and naiads frolicked with dolphins and other beasts of the rivers and seas. Lambert eyed a carved siren ruefully and thought to himself that the sculptor had taken a great deal of artistic liberty with her likeness. Sirens could certainly sing a lovely song, but once you got close enough to see them properly all attraction tended to shrivel and die at the root.

Built on the edge of this fountain square was a grand castle, all high arches and columns and other decadent embellishments that served no architectural purpose. Many of the windows lacked glass, in the southern style; the weather was rarely poor enough here to merit it. Lambert strode up to the door, trying his best not to think about the terrors that awaited him within, and entered with Aiden close behind him.

Though the palace in which Keira had so graciously been given apartments by Emhyr var Emreis was lovely, Lambert knew that she was secretly displeased. She would have preferred to be further south, in the heart of the Nilfgaardian empire. Close to the emperor, or at least to his advisors. Unfortunately for her, that position had been promptly usurped by Philippa Eilhart the very instant Yennefer had turned her back. Luckily, the emperor had seen merit in Keira's research on the Catriona plague, but the caveat for her being allowed to continue it on Nilfgaardian soil was that she must do so in a less populated area. Assengard certainly fit the bill.

Lambert entered the main gate with some trepidation. The guards let him pass—that was a good sign, at least—but he’d never known Keira to forgive so quickly. Odds were high that she’d hex him the moment he stuck his head through her door.

“Come on, this way.” He nodded for Aiden to follow him, crossed the courtyard, and entered through a door at the base of a tower.

Keira had insisted that if she were going to be relegated to a keep so far from the capital that she was at least going to have the best view in the city. On that Emhyr had certainly delivered. There were no less than two hundred steps to her apartments at the top. She was fond of using teleport spells to come and go as she pleased. The witchers, on the other hand, had to walk.

“I should probably warn you,” Lambert said grimly as they approached the door at the top. “She might not be pleased to see me.”

Aiden made a face of mock incredulity and rolled his eyes. Lambert made a mental note to kick his ass later and, with some hesitation, knocked on the door.

It swung inward with no resistance. Lambert ventured inside, not letting his guard down. 

“Keira?” he called out cautiously. “We need to talk—”

Before he’d even registered the buzz of his medallion, he was thrown violently upward into the air. He hung there, suspended by a force that squeezed his neck like a giant’s fist, his legs pedaling like an overturned beetle’s.

“Damnit, Keira,” he choked. “Get your ass out here or I swear—”

“I don’t think you’re in a position to do much swearing, darling,” Keira Metz said coolly from the shadows. She stepped forward into the warm glow of the fire that blazed in the center of the room, delicately fixing her hair with one hand. The other was held aloft in a pantomime of the invisible fingers squeezing around Lambert’s throat.

Lambert looked down to Aiden for help, but the other man simply shrugged and stepped aside. 

“Not my fight,” he said with a grin, and leaned back against the wall by the door, enjoying the spectacle.

“Bastard,” Lambert wheezed.

“You’ve some nerve showing your face here,” Keira said, her eyes flashing as she advanced on Lambert. “I was under the impression that I told you not to come back.”

“Wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.” Lambert pulled ineffectively at the invisible vise around his neck. “For fuck’s sake, let me _down_!”

“And why should I?”

With immense effort, Lambert managed to concentrate his will and draw the sign of Aard. The blast hit Keira full force, sending her tumbling backward with a shriek. The bonds holding him immediately dissolved, and he fell to the floor gasping.

He got to his feet unsteadily and went to help her up. She swatted his hand away and stood, somehow managing to retain some dignity, smoothing the wrinkles from her dress.

“Keira—”

She slapped him hard across the face.

Lambert swore and rubbed his cheek. “Fine,” he admitted. “I’ll give you that one. Can we please stop the theatrics and just _talk_ for half a damn minute?”

Keira’s gaze flicked to Aiden. “Who’s he?”

Aiden stepped forward, his witchers’ eyes glowing in the firelight. Golden compasses, immutable, unerring. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said with a dignified bow. “My name is Aiden.”

The sorceress stiffened, looking rapidly from Lambert to Aiden and back. She took in the cat’s head medallion around Aiden’s neck and the single chain around Lambert’s, and her mouth pressed into a thin line. She stepped back.

“You’d better come in, then,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. She stalked off toward the next chamber, beckoning for them to follow.

If there was one thing Keira Metz prided herself upon, it was style. She may not have been the most powerful sorceress Lambert knew—that dubious honor went to Philippa Eilhart—but she was shrewd and cunning, and when she wanted something she made damn sure she got it in full.

As a result, her parlor was grand. The circular chamber boasted an enormous balcony that ran half its length, looking out over the city. Torches and fires in the streets below twinkled like stars scattered upon the ground. The plaster walls were painted with elegant flowering vines, and the floor was covered with exquisite rugs imported from Ofier. Candelabras burned on the tables, and in the center of the room was a large brazier that was kept burning night and day. Keira’s megascope sat in one corner, surrounded by bookshelves and tables laden with alchemical supplies, and in another was a large bathtub carved from jade and half-hidden behind a painted screen. A sumptuous four-poster bed was set between the two.

Keira gestured for the two of them to take a seat by the fire and then snapped her fingers, conjuring up a platter of grapes and cheese and a carafe of wine on a nearby table. Lambert accepted the drink. Aiden did not.

The sorceress sat on a velvet chair across from them and sighed. “Start from the beginning.”

~~~~~~

The carafe was empty and the moon was high in the sky by the time Lambert finally ran out of words and the room lapsed into a tense silence.

Keira sat back in her chair and regarded the two of them with a grim expression. “And so,” she said finally, “You thought it would be best to seek out _my_ help?”

Lambert held out his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I wouldn’t be here if I had any other ideas. I know you’re not too keen on me right now.”

“That would be putting it mildly.” Keira sighed. “In a strange way, though, I am happy to see you.”

“Never a dull moment, that’s for sure.” Lambert rubbed at his throat.

“Is there anything you can do?” Aiden said, cutting directly to the heart of the matter.

Keira shook her head. “I’m deeply flattered, but I’m afraid not. This…whatever was done to you is far beyond the scope of my powers. In point of fact, I doubt any sorceress would be able to help you even if she was willing. It may come down to throwing yourself upon the mercy of the man who did this in the first place.”

“That’s not terribly reassuring.”

“Reassuring was never my strong suit. I am sorry,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t imagine what was done to you or to what purpose, but it must be dreadful. I wish I could offer more help.”

A breeze gusted through the open balcony, making the candles in their holders flicker and sputter. One on the table by the fire flickered and went out; Aiden reflexively drew the sign of Igni in an attempt to relight it. The wick refused to combust, cooling and curling in on itself resolutely in the night air. He made an expression of dismay.

“What about this?” He indicated his hands. “I can’t cast signs anymore. Even the simplest of magic eludes me.”

Keira frowned. “Your signs, much the same as my magic, require you to draw the Power and channel it through your body. If I had to make a hypothesis, it would be that the process requires living tissue. Unfortunately, you’re stuck somewhere in between.”

Lambert rubbed his temples. “Great.”

Keira’s eyes glinted suddenly, as if she’d had a revelation. “Did you say that this man left a mark on you?”

Lambert nodded by way of answer and rolled up his sleeve. Keira rose and took his arm, tracing the brand with one finger. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen something like this before.”

“What? Where?”

Keira smiled knowingly. “See, I’m not entirely useless.” Without a word of further explanation, she strode over to her workbench and began sifting through stacks of papers and loose vials of alchemical ingredients. “Where did I put it—oh, _damnit_ —” she cursed as she knocked over a pot of ink, spilling cobalt blue across the polished wood.

“So,” Lambert said, getting up and following her. “Are you planning on enlightening me, or should I just stand here in befuddlement until I die of old age?”

“Hush, Lambert.” Keira was bent over a trunk, sifting through its contents. “Got it!” she said triumphantly, pulling out a ceramic disk engraved with runes. In its center was a crude carving of a mouth.

“Got what? What is that?”

“A xenovox.”

“A what?”

Keira ignored him and closed her eyes in concentration. The ankh she wore on her beaded necklace glowed momentarily, and Lambert’s medallion vibrated hard against his chest.

“Geralt, darling,” Keira said into the ceramic disk, “I need a favor.”

A startled yelp came seemingly from nowhere, followed by a great deal of muffled clattering and indistinct swearing. After a moment, the noise ceased and Geralt’s disembodied voice spoke gruffly from the disk in Keira’s hand.

_“Damnit, Keira, what do you want?”_

“Come now,” she said with a grin. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

_“Forgot I still had this thing,”_ Geralt muttered. _“You know it’s the middle of the night?”_

“Yes, and I do apologize. But I have a matter of some urgency I’d like to discuss.”

There was a heavy silence and then Geralt sighed. _“What do you need?”_

“I seem to remember you recounting a story about a man you once made a deal with. One who left a mark on your face as a symbol of your pact. Do you remember?”

_“Kind of hard to forget something like that.”_ There was a pause. _“Keira, what’s happened?”_

“I just so happen to have Lambert sitting here in my apartments right now with a very similar mark on his arm.”

_“Shit,”_ Geralt hissed out through his teeth. _“Can he hear me?”_

“Yeah, I can hear you, wiseass. I already know I’m in deeper shit than a zeugl in a latrine. You don’t have to spell it out for me.”

“My apologies for interrupting this heartwarming reunion,” Keira cut in, “but can you tell us anything about this man?”

_“He’s not a man,”_ Geralt said flatly. _“Don’t really know what he is, as a matter of fact. Definitely not someone you want to cross paths with.”_

“But you have before. And you’ve bested him.”

_“…Yes,”_ Geralt admitted. _“By the skin of my teeth.”_

“Do you think you can do it again?”

_“Was really hoping I’d never have to try.”_

“Yes, well. What we wish and what we receive are often very different things.”

Geralt sighed heavily. _“There’s a man—he’s as close to an expert in O’Dimm and the arcane as we can get. He owes me a favor. A big one. I can try to track him down.”_

“That’s the spirit,” Keira said with a smile. “Once you’ve done that, would you mind meeting Lambert at—?”

“The Inn at the Crossroads,” Lambert supplied. “In Velen.”

_“Fine,”_ Geralt said begrudgingly. _“Any other requests, your majesty?”_

Keira laughed. “My, how I’ve missed you. Good luck, Geralt.”

_“Yeah, you too. We’re all going to need it.”_ The xenovox crackled and went silent. Keira’s pendant returned to its usual silver.

“None of that exactly sounded encouraging,” Aiden remarked from his chair by the fire.

“I’ll come up with something,” Keira said, laying the xenovox aside.

“If there’s one thing sorceresses are good at, it’s scheming.” Lambert retrieved his cup of wine and drained it. “I’d believe her on that one.”

“I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment.” Keira set about gathering up some of the supplies from her laboratory into a leather rucksack.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing.” Keira stuffed an elegantly-bound journal into the bag. “I’ve been meaning to pay Triss a visit for some time now, and this seems a good a reason as any. I hear Kovir is nice this time of year. Dreadfully rainy, but nice.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

Keira glanced at him reproachfully. “I’ve found you people who can help. I know you’re apt to charge at the problem like an enraged fiend, but I’d very much like for everyone to come out of this alive—more or less,” she said, with an apologetic glance at Aiden. “Journey north and meet Geralt and his acquaintance at the inn. Once you’ve done that, the four of you can join myself and Triss in Kovir. We should have worked up a more concrete plan by then.”

Lambert nodded. "Alright."

"So it's settled, then. I plan to depart first thing in the morning. The two of you are welcome to stay if you so wish. I'm certain there are more than enough empty chambers to go around in this place."

"Thank you, Keira," Aiden said earnestly. "I understand that you're risking a great deal to help me, though you have no cause to. I can't express how much it means to me—and I'm pretty sure Lambert won't express it, even though he feels the same."

Keira granted him a small smile. "Don't thank me just yet. Curiosity has clouded my judgment before. I pray this isn't one of those times, but there's still a very good chance that not all of us will come out of this in one piece."

~~~~~~

"Who is she? To you, I mean," Aiden asked later, when the two of them had settled into the room provided for them, which was markedly less decadent than the sorceress's parlor and had only one small window looking out over the mountains.

Lambert, who was sitting beside the fire sharpening his swords, froze. He'd known this was something that would have to be confronted ever since he'd made the decision to bring Aiden to Nazair. The question, hanging unspoken in the air until now, had been clinging to him like a shadow ever since. It was both painful and a relief to at last hear it spoken.

"You were dead four years," he answered finally, drawing the whetstone along the sharp of his blade with great care.

"Yes, so I'm told."

Lambert looked anywhere but at Aiden. He could feel the other man's golden eyes boring into the back of his neck. "I lost you," he said, still intently working on his blade. "I lost you, I lost Vesemir, we lost Kaer Morhen, and no matter what I did nothing helped. Taking Karadin's head off his shoulders didn't help. Drinking myself half to death didn't help. I wasn't too fucking excited about setting out on the Path again after that. Seemed kind of pointless." He trailed off.

"And?" Aiden didn't sound angry. Just...sad.

"And Keira offered me an alternative. Don't ever tell her I said this, but she might be the smartest person I know. She's been working on a vaccination to stop the spread of Catriona for the past few years now. To do that, she needed ingredients harvested from monsters. Things that are difficult to obtain."

"And a witcher makes that much simpler."

"...Yes."

Aiden sighed. "I won't pretend I'm not hurt, but I’m finding it hard to fault you either. Why did you keep this from me?"

Lambert drew his whetstone slowly along the blade. "I don't know."

Aiden approached quietly and sat down by the hearth beside him. He rested his head on Lambert's shoulder.

"Do you love her?"

There was a heavy silence that felt like a physical presence in the air between them. Lambert's hand stilled.

"I don't know," he admitted, because it hurt less at this point to simply be honest. He thought about Keira, about her shrewdness and vivacity and all the times they'd nearly torn each others' throats out over the years. "Maybe I do."

He set his blade gently aside and wrapped his arm around Aiden's shoulder.

"But not the same way I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely ADORE Keira Metz, and I like to think that given time she would form a camaraderie with Aiden that would piss Lambert the hell off. I was super excited to get to write her in this chapter, and to explore a city we haven't seen in canon. 
> 
> I'm working on this fic right now for Camp NaNo, and I've made a lot of progress! I can't wait to share some of the later parts with you. 
> 
> If you're enjoying the story so far, please consider leaving me a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts :)


	7. Hell Hath No Fury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta read by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

No sooner had the witchers arrived in Assengard, it seemed, than they had to depart. Keira Metz left via teleport, half her laboratory in tow, late the next morning. She took Aiden’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze just before vanishing. Lambert was both relieved and oddly rankled by the way the two of them had taken to each other. The looks they exchanged over the breakfast table were a little too knowing.

Still, he felt better, having Keira on their side. She seemed to harbor no ill will toward Aiden, and no more than the usual amount of ill will toward Lambert himself. He was certain she’d prove to be a valuable asset in the coming days. Keira Metz knew more about the human body and the various exceedingly painful and cruel ways it could be broken than perhaps any other sorceress alive. If anyone could figure out a way to reverse whatever curse was taking its toll on Aiden, it was her.

The decadent rubble of the once-fair capital city of Nazair faded into the distance as the witchers set off once more, in the opposite direction they’d ridden in the previous day. It was slow going; their horses were still tired from the earlier journey and, if Lambert was being honest with himself, his ass was sore. Better not to rush things, tempting though it seemed. There was no telling how long it would take Geralt to locate his occultist and make it to the rendezvous point in Velen.

And so, with these very persuasive arguments in his head and a strong desire for beer and some stew in his belly, Lambert gave in at once when Aiden suggested the two of them stop and investigate the goings-on in a small village on the outskirts of Brugge.

It had been obvious even from a distance that something was amiss. It was the peak of the harvest season—every able-bodied man, woman, and child should have been out in the fields, gathering up produce and storing it for the coming winter. Instead, the fields stood empty, and the hard-won fruits of the earth had been left to rot and go to seed under the unforgiving autumn sun. The pumpkins had gone to mush on their vines. Lambert thought privately that the sound they made when his horse stamped on them wasn’t unlike the sound of a drowner’s head smashing on a rock. He kept that revelation to himself.

As they rode into the little town, which the crudely-painted sign that hung over the main road informed them was called Seven Pines, folk seemed flightier than usual. They recoiled from Lambert in his black clothes and Aiden in his hood as if they were wraiths or specters of the Wild Hunt, come to raze their village to the ground. It took quite some time for the two of them to locate anyone brave enough to speak to them—most ran away or began spouting prayers to their household gods at the sight of the witchers’ approach. The only person brave enough to hold her ground turned out to be the village ealdorwoman, a gaunt, hunched-over crone with shrewd eyes.

“Not afraid we’re here to steal your souls?” Lambert said bitterly, crossing his arms as the woman peered at them. She leaned on her cane heavily, but it was clear that the frailty of her body belied a sharp mind.

"Don't mind them," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "They're frightened, and with good reason."

"But not you?"  
She shook her head and smiled. "No. I'm not afeared of witchers. A lifetime ago, one of your brothers pulled my father from a drowner's grasp. I know the stories they tell about you are just that. Stories."

Aiden raised an eyebrow. "You said they had good reason. What are they frightened of?"

"The wraith," the woman said simply. "It haunts our fields. It's taken five already—we only found what was left of young Madja and Otis this morn. Our crops spoil on the vine. They're all too scared to venture out to harvest them, and I'm too frail to do it myself. I worry we'll have nothing left to hold us through the winter."

"Wraiths are something we can help with, provided you have coin to pay."

The crone nodded. "Aye, we've a bit. And we can feed and house you until the job is done, provided the dead don't trouble you. Madja's house stands empty."

Lambert nodded. "Deal."  
"It's the one at the end, just past the well." She gestured with her cane to indicate the house in question.

"And the bodies?"

"Down the path and that leads past that hill, where the barrows are. They've not been prepared yet. Had a lot of deaths lately, and only one gravedigger."

"All the better." Aiden dipped his head in a gesture of respect. "We'll keep you informed of what we find."

The woman held up a hand. "I've no need for the details, so long as the monster is slain in the end. I have my hands full enough for the moment sitting vigil with Otis's wife. If there's anything else you require, ask Andre, the blacksmith. He'll provide."

Aiden smiled warmly. "You have our thanks for your generosity."

"It's our way." The woman looked over her shoulder, out past the ramshackle fence that encircled the little town, and shivered. "I only pray it dies fast."

~~~~~~

The vacant hut was much cozier than expected. There was a small yard for their horses, who accepted the offer of respite gratefully, and the inside was simply but practically furnished. The dead woman had clearly valued comfort—the bedclothes were much finer than she had a right to, and the pillows were stuffed with goose down. She had to have bought the linens off a trader, and likely at great expense. This sort of finery was hard to come by outside larger cities like Novigrad or Lan Exeter.

Lambert appreciated it nonetheless. Though he was more than capable of gritting his teeth and bearing the nights spent sleeping on damp and frozen earth by a guttering fire, he vastly preferred the idea of a sturdy roof over his head and a prohibitively expensive bed to sleep or fuck in. Keira was of the same mind in that regard, which was part of why the two of them had gotten along so well. Life was hard and short. Might as well take advantage of the finer things.

Their belongings stowed safely and their mounts well tended-to, the witchers set out along the path the ealdorwoman had indicated to them earlier. It was well-worn by decades of foot traffic, and wound its way outside the village gates and between a series of steep, rounded hills.   
Lambert realized with an uncomfortable prickle at the back of his skull after they passed several hills of the same shape that they weren’t hills at all, but tumuli. Seven Pines sat on the outskirts of a vast necropolis, which from the look of things might have even predated the arrival of humans in this region. The occasional chunks of exposed stone that had eroded their way through the grassy mounds in places appeared to be elven in origin, carved with fluted details and archaic runes. Just as it was in many places, the humans had simply picked up where the elves had left off, continuing to build onto their ruins because they lacked the skill to construct anything comparable themselves.

The days grew short this time of year. The golden light of the afternoon sun was already fading as the two of them wandered among the barrows, robbing the world slowly of color. The dying light turned out to be a blessing, as it made the direction they should be heading quickly apparent. The dim glow of a lantern stood out amongst the darkening hills, beckoning them closer.

Lambert and Aiden arrived eventually at the base of one such barrow, drawn to the light like moths to a flame. The lantern sat on a table in a small, cave-like hollow that had been dug out of the base of the tumulus. In the cave’s depths resided several bodies, but only one person—an auburn-haired lad of no more than twenty, dressed in a threadbare and mud-stained jerkin. He stood examining the supine form of an older man intently in the low light. The scent of rosemary and horsemint stung Lambert’s nose.

The boy hadn’t heard the two of them enter. Lambert cleared his throat and he startled and yelped as surely as if a grave hag had wrapped her icy hands around his neck.

“K-keep back, the both of you,” he stuttered, snatching up a small knife from the table and holding it ineffectually between himself and the witchers. “I don’t want trouble.”

Aiden held out his hands in a placating gesture. “Relax. We’re not here to hurt you.”

He eyed the two of them warily. “What do you want?”

“Your ealdorwoman hired us to exterminate the wraith. We’ve come to look at the bodies.”

The boy hesitated, maintaining his white-knuckled grip on the knife. “I’ve heard tell witchers steal souls from unsuspecting folk.”

Lambert rolled his eyes. “Kid, if I _could_ , do you really think that little needle would stop me?”

The boy blanched.

“Stop embarrassing yourself and put the damn knife down. If we wanted to hurt you we would have done it already.”

With a grimace and a shudder, the boy released his grip on the blade and let it drop onto the table beside the corpse with a thud.

“That’s better,” Aiden said cheerfully. “You have a name?”

“Austin,” the boy mumbled, looking pointedly at his shoes. Lambert let out a heavy sigh.

“The eyes are a side effect of the potions they gave us to make us this way,” he stated flatly. “They help us see in the dark. We can’t use them to curse you, or steal your memories, or control your mind.”

“…Oh.” Austin looked up. “Sorry.”

“You’re certainly not the first to hold that belief,” Aiden said with a rueful frown. “Not many of us left, now. I’ve heard the people in the south of Nilfgaard think witchers are nothing more than a story told to frighten children at night. There’s not much need for us anymore.”

“Lucky there are still poor bastards like this, then,” Lambert reminded him, stepping closer to the table.

He found himself feeling grateful for the bunches of pungent herbs that were strewn about the little cave. The bodies were still relatively fresh, having only been in this state for a day, but the sun had been beating down hard that afternoon, and corpses spoiled quickly in this weather. The horsemint wasn’t a particularly pleasant scent, but it was certainly an improvement on the cloying stench of decomposition and it kept the flies away.

“What can you tell us about him?” Aiden asked of Austin, walking around the table to examine the body from the other side.

The boy shrugged. “Otis was the miller. He was kind. He leaves behind a wife and a young daughter. Andre found him in the fields when the sun rose this morn. He was already…like that.”

It was plain what Austin meant, even without a witcher’s superior senses. The body had been rent almost in half by wicked claws, the entrails spilling wetly from the wounds in the belly, mottled pink and green and grey. There was an expression of intense horror on his face, and his eyes, which were frozen wide open, were bloodshot and anguished. A dark trickle of blood trailed from one of his ears.

Aiden’s brows knit as he examined the body. Lambert knew the calculations he was running in his head, checking the injuries against his mental encyclopedia of post-conjunction beasts. He didn’t bother doing the same. The bleeding from the ears meant there were only a handful of options, and none of them were good. There was a possibility they were dealing with a vampire; bruxae and alps could rupture eardrums with their powerful shrieks and had been known to disembowel their victims, but given that the dead man’s skin wasn’t pale as porcelain, he didn’t appear to have been exsanguinated. With those options eliminated, there was really only one left.

A beann’shie.

As far as wraiths went, there were worse options. He’d rather the beann’shie than a penitent or a pesta, but this was still going to be a headache of a contract nonetheless. Mutagens or not, he was pretty certain he’d permanently damaged his hearing over the past few years with the number of times his eardrums had been ruptured. He scowled, already anticipating the damnable itching that always accompanied the healing process.

“What about the woman? Weren’t there two bodies?” Aiden cast his glance around the cave.

“Weren’t much left of her.” Austin indicated another table in a darkened corner, which held a mound of torn meat and bloody rags that was barely recognizable as having once been human.  
“Not sure what to do with her,” he admitted. “She’s got no family, and burying her like that just don’t seem right.”

“If you want my advice? Burn the body.” Aiden stepped back from the table, apparently satisfied with his cursory examination. “Along with any items that were of particular value to her. Otherwise there’s a fair chance she’ll rise again as a noon or nightwraith in a few weeks’ time.”

Austin’s already white face went even paler. “Y’mean there’s _more_ of ‘em?”

“Gotta be honest, I’m surprised there are any of you left at this point,” Lambert remarked. “Living on top of a necropolis like this, you’re bound to encounter monsters. And since the lot of you are too fucking scared to even hire someone to clear them out, well…” he shrugged.

“Mother Melitele,” Austin whimpered.

“You’ll be fine,” Aiden reassured him, shooting Lambert a reproachful glance. “Just do as we said, alright? The sooner the better.”

Austin nodded.

“Good lad. We won’t trouble you any further.” He gestured to Lambert with a nod of his head to follow, and the two of them abandoned the herbal dankness of the cave for the cooling night air.

“You didn’t have to scare him quite so badly,” Aiden said after a while.

“True, I didn’t. And he could’ve gone on very happily until a grave hag decided she wants to take up residence in that makeshift morgue of his and scoops his brain out.” Lambert sighed. “I’ve never understood why people insist on living places like this. What’s to be gained?”

“Job security?” Aiden shrugged. “For us, I mean. For them it’s instinct. Their mothers and fathers settled these lands, put down roots. You’d be hard pressed to get them to abandon them.”

“Maybe I just can’t sympathize. Roots don’t grow on the Path.”

“I know.”

The moon was already high in the sky, though the final vestiges of daylight had yet to fade entirely from the horizon. The path back to the village was occasionally lit by the glow of an errant firefly. Samhain drew near, and soon the warmth would bleed from the world and the mountain passes would be blocked with drifts of blinding snow. Lambert found himself thinking about the coming winter, and where they would be able to weather it out. Being as Kaer Morhen was no longer an option, he was going to have to come up with something else, and soon.

A sudden gust of wind flared up, where before the night air had been still. The abrupt change in weather was accompanied by a plaintive wail and a sharp buzz of Lambert’s medallion. He and Aiden stopped walking, shared a horrified glance, and turned on their heels, back down the winding pathways of the necropolis.

The wailing persisted as the two of them crept through the darkness, their hands on the hilts of their silver swords. The sound of it grated on Lambert’s skull, sending piercing pains through his head whenever it crescendoed. A beann’shie, there could no longer be any doubt. He’d never encountered another creature that could produce a noise that came anywhere close to the noxious sound of its shrieks.

The screaming was accompanied by a sickly green glow between two barrows up ahead, and the terrified wails of a second person, which rose dramatically in pitch before abruptly stopping with a gurgle.

_“Shit,”_ Lambert cursed, taking off at a sprint toward the source of the noise.

By the time his boots skidded to a stop on the packed dirt path just outside the morgue, it was already too late. He’d known it the instant he’d heard the boy’s cries, but the pit still dropped out of his stomach at the site of him, flayed open like a gutted trout on the cave floor. His neck hung at an unnatural angle, and his eyes stared blankly upward.

“Gods _damn it!_ ” Lambert kicked the wall in frustration and swore violently again when he injured his foot. “We were just here!”

Aiden said nothing, looking down at Austin’s body with a stricken expression. His mouth opened and closed wordlessly for a moment, and then he closed his eyes.

“Mother Melitele, take this child,” he murmured, just loud enough for Lambert to hear his words. “Hold him to your breast, and give him comfort. Forgive me for my failings, of which there are many. Watch over his soul on the journey between this life and the next.”

He knelt on the gritty cave floor and delicately closed Austin’s eyes. His task complete, he buried his head in his hands and took a deep, shaking breath.

Lambert came to his side and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We couldn’t have known.”

Aiden dropped his hands and met Lambert’s gaze with wet eyes. “I told him everything was going to be fine.”

~~~~~~

“Can I ask you something?” Lambert said later that night, breaking the sorrowful silence in the little house as Aiden sat sharpening his sword pensively by the fire.

“Hmm?”

“You prayed for that boy’s soul. I didn’t know you still kept the old gods.”

Aiden pressed his lips together, drawing the whetstone along the edge of his silver blade. “It’s complicated.”

“Enlighten me.” Lambert moved to sit at the hearth next to him, sprawling out on the floor.

Aiden chewed on his words for a moment before speaking. “I didn’t lose my faith the same way you did. Even when I was strapped to the table, the mutagens burning their way through my body, I did not curse the gods and demand to know why. I asked only to survive, and I did.”

The silver rang as Aiden sharpened it. He tested the edge with his thumb before setting the whetstone aside and picking up a rag and a bottle of specter oil.

“I know what you’re going to ask me, Lambert, and the answer is that I don’t know. I don’t remember anything of my death or my resurrection. For all I know I could have been drinking and making merry in Valhalla with legions of Skelligan warriors, but I think that more likely there was nothing.” He worked the oil onto the blade with practiced hands, making tiny circles with the rag to ensure that every inch of the metal was coated evenly.

“If there’s nothing then what’s the point of praying?”

“What the harm in it?” Aiden shrugged. “I find comfort in the ritual. It’s familiar. It gives me something to do when there’s nothing else to be done. It was the last kind thing I could have done for that boy, so I did it. Perhaps I’m wrong and the Goddess does hear me. There are too many strange things in this life for me to write off deities entirely. Look at us—we’re monsters both, mutants and murderers. There are many in far-away places who would say that we’re just fairy tales gone sour, but here we sit.”

He set the bottle of oil aside and turned the blade over in his hands, checking for imperfections. Of course there were none—Aiden had always cared for his blades to the point of excess, and it showed. Lambert thought of Vesemir’s silver sword sitting neglected in his scabbard and felt a pang of guilt.

“Fair enough,” he admitted. “I’m fine with being a fairy tale monster if it means people stay the fuck out of my way.”

Aiden chuckled. “You would say that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve always been so obtuse—” Aiden broke off suddenly, his body jerking like a marionette with its strings cut. His head lolled forward on his shoulders and then suddenly snapped up.

“What the fuck?” Lambert recoiled, scrambling to his feet.

Aiden’s eyes—normally perfect copies of his own feline slits, fringed with thick lashes that somehow made them look warm and kind despite their otherness—were the sickly milk-white of one who’d gone blind from disease. His jaw was slack, and his movements irregular. He clambered slowly to his feet, still holding his silver blade.

“Aiden?”

There was no recognition in those horrible blank eyes. Aiden shuffled forward, brandishing his blade at Lambert. He dodged the slash, realizing with horror that Aiden was between him and his swordbelts, which he’d left on the bed. He had nothing to defend himself from whatever was happening—

Aiden swung again and the point of his sword caught Lambert’s shirt, tearing the fabric as easily as if it were made of spider silk. Lambert kept dodging backward, evading the worst of the blows, and realizing with dawning horror that he was running out of space to flee.

_“Aiden!_ Fuck, snap out of it—”

There really was nowhere to go now. He was cornered like an animal, unable to find a trace of the man he loved in those dead, unseeing eyes. Paying more attention to the movement of the sword than to his footing, he tripped on the leg of a chair and fell back hard on his ass. Aiden stood over him, the blade held aloft.

Lambert made a fist, his heart pounding in his chest, and did the only thing he could do. He drew the sign of Axii.

Aiden’s body crumpled to the floor, the sword clattering out of his hand. Lambert kicked it away—it came to a stop somewhere under the bed. He fought to catch his breath, unable to make any sense of what had just happened.

The sign appeared to have worked. Aiden snored softly where he laid on the floor. Lambert rolled him over and pried open one eye, but there was no sign of the hideous purulent orb that had occupied the space moments previously. Aiden looked like himself, his eyes golden and clear, his brow knit with tiny lines of worry as he frowned in his sleep.

Lambert pressed a hand to his mouth and took several deep, shaking breaths through his nose. He didn’t have to understand what had happened to identify it as a portent.

Time was running out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really fond of this arc, it's probably my favorite out of the entire story. I'm super excited to finally be able to post the first part. I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	8. Wishbone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

Lambert sat on the dirt floor of the little house, leaning against the wall by the hearth. On the opposite side of the room, Aiden’s slumbering form lay peacefully on the bed. Lambert balanced his sword on his knees and drew a shaking breath.

He would get no sleep tonight. Not after what had happened earlier. He stood vigil over Aiden’s body for fear that whatever had taken possession of him would return while Lambert slept beside him and use Aiden’s hands to slit his throat.

At the outset of their journey, it had seemed cruel enough punishment that Aiden was no longer able to eat or use magic. Now Lambert was coming to realize that they hadn’t even begun to plumb the depths of O’Dimm’s wickedness. First Aiden’s body, and now his mind. There was no telling what was going to greet Lambert when he finally awoke.

Lambert thought of Nenneke’s pitying eyes, of Geralt’s trepidation. The high priestess’s prediction that the forces sustaining Aiden would likely decay over time seemed to hold water. Magic—particularly powerful magic, the kind of magic that bent the rules of what should have been possible—came with an expiration date. Lambert had seen the consequences of spells that remained in effect after that time had elapsed first-hand, and it was never pretty. Golems that turned on those they were created to protect and smashed them into a bloody pulp. Portals that rearranged travelers’ bodies and deposited them, screaming and mangled, on the other side. Illusions that morphed into nightmares turned solid. Glamours that ate away at flesh like acid rather than blurring its imperfections.

There was no telling what the passage of time had in store for the two of them. Lambert was forced to confront the fact that the sole responsibility for the situation they now found themselves in rested on his shoulders. It was he who had approached the Man of Glass at the crossroads that night. It was he who had spoken the words, he who had willfully let himself be deceived by O’Dimm’s silver tongue because he wanted so desperately to believe that the words he spoke were true. And Aiden was the one who was going to suffer for his foolishness.

Bitter waves of regret washed over his heart. He hadn’t wanted this. As desperate as his desire to see Aiden again, to get answers to the questions that had been torturing him for years, to reach any thin catharsis after all that had happened, he never would have taken O’Dimm’s hand if he’d known. For all they’d been through, Aiden had suffered enough. They both had.

Aiden tossed fitfully in his sleep and Lambert tightened his grip on the sword. A scant few hours remained before the dawn.

~~~~~~

The rising sun was of little comfort. Fatigue permeated Lambert’s bones. His jaw ached with the strain of clenching his teeth, and the dull red beginnings of a headache throbbed behind his temples.

Despite that, it was a relief when Aiden awoke as himself, his hands reaching out blindly for the space Lambert should have been occupying next to him. His frantic eyes scanned the room for Lambert, finding him still occupying his post on the floor beside the remnants of the fire. At the sight of his haggard face and drawn sword, Aiden’s brows knit in confusion.

“Lambert?” The sound of his voice, normal, rational, concerned, was a balm on Lambert’s frayed nerves. “What’s going on?”

“You don’t remember.” It was more of a statement than a question. Lambert was certain Aiden hadn’t been cognizant during the episode.

“Remember what?” Aiden rose and rubbed his eyes, crossing the small room to get closer to Lambert. Lambert eyed him warily as he approached, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Aiden stopped short, taking in Lambert’s white-knuckled grip on his blade and his torn shirt. “What happened?”

Lambert grimaced. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”

“Tell me.”

Aiden’s face was an unreadable mask as Lambert recounted what had taken place, how Aiden had lost himself, how he’d turned feral and bloodthirsty and attacked the nearest warm body he found. He did his best to soften the blow, to not let his own fear and anguish bleed into the retelling of it, but could tell his words cut deeply all the same. Aiden looked away, staring resolutely into the embers that smoldered in the grate.

“I could have killed you,” he murmured.

“I think that’s going a bit far.”

“Lambert, look at yourself.” Aiden gestured at the sword that still sat between them. “Look how you’re sitting. You don’t trust me anymore—you can’t. And to be quite honest, I can’t blame you one bit.”

Lambert set the blade aside, made an effort to uncross his arms. “As far as I’m concerned, that wasn’t you. It was O’Dimm. I know you would never attack me.”

“That’s clearly no longer a promise I can keep.”

Lambert sighed and rubbed his temples. “We can fix this. We just need more fucking time.”

“What happens next time?” Aiden asked bitterly. “What happens when I come for you in your sleep, or when your back is turned? Your medallion doesn’t respond to me, Lambert.”

“No, but Axii was enough to bring you back. I’m a tough bastard, Aiden. Worse men than you have tried to kill me, and I’m still standing.”

“For now.” Aiden’s lip trembled, and he clenched his jaw angrily. “I can’t lose you again, Lambert. Not after everything that’s happened.”

A tear ran down his nose and dripped onto the packed earth of the floor. Lambert moved to sit beside him, wrapping his arm around Aiden’s shoulder and pulling him close. Aiden buried his face in Lambert’s shirt and sobbed, his shoulders shaking with the effort.

It was all Lambert could do to hold him, to rock him gently as the tears came and try not to fall to pieces himself. He was helpless, unmoored, a ship adrift on a stormy sea. He held Aiden as if he might vanish if he let go.

He said nothing. There was nothing he could promise, no words he could say that wouldn’t taste like lies coming out of his mouth. He sat there, unmoving, breathing in Aiden’s scent as his tears slowly soaked into the thin cotton of his shirt, and did his best not to break.

~~~~~~

The necropolis was larger than Lambert had realized. The mounded barrows went on for miles, only stopping when they reached a series of steep hills that were slightly too short to be called mountains in their own right. He suspected that the tombs continued even there, extending into vast caverns that ran beneath, but luckily that wasn’t their destination. The rest of those buried there had gone undisturbed for centuries, or perhaps even millennia.

The beann’shie, on the other hand, had only been terrorizing the people of Seven Pines for a few weeks. It was more than likely the tormented spirit of a woman who had perished here. All they had to do was locate her bones.

Admittedly though, in a city of the dead that was easier said than done.

The witchers roamed together down the paths between the hills, still feeling raw and shaken. The job lent some sense of normalcy to the day, if nothing else. If Lambert really tried, he could pretend that none of it—Karadin, O’Dimm, the Wild Hunt—had happened, and that the two of them were out on a contract like any other. He lied to himself that tonight they were going to get paid, that they would ride to the nearest large city and fuck in their room at the inn and drink and play Gwent until the sun was almost up once more. He could have been happy, truly happy, if they’d just done that for the rest of his life.

“Do you see that?” Aiden said, interrupting Lambert’s thoughts. He pointed to the zenith of a nearby barrow, at a circle of withered and deadened grass that sat atop its peak.

“Looks promising.”

Lambert found himself winded more easily than usual as they climbed the steep hill to investigate more closely. The grass within the circle was indeed burnt, black and crunchy underneath his boots. There was a harsh line at its borders where the lush green blades that remained met death. Lambert bent down and crumbled a dried blade between his fingers. It smelt of decay, of things once green and sweet that had rotted into nothingness.

“This has got to be where she rose,” Aiden remarked as Lambert got to his feet. “I haven’t seen anything else like this anywhere in the necropolis. The shape is too regular to be a lightning strike.”

Lambert nodded. “Her bones should be somewhere below, then.”

The tombs within the barrow were accessible via a small doorway at its base, which was sealed with a large stone. On most of the other tumuli, the stones had eroded together after centuries of rain and snow and creeping moss that all but hid the openings from sight, but on this one the moss had been scraped away and the earth around it had been recently disturbed.

“Someone’s been in here.” Aiden knelt and touched the gouged earth with his fingertips. “Perhaps a few weeks past.”

“Stand back.” Lambert drew the sign of Aard and directed the blast at the stone, which shifted out of the way with a groan of protest and a loud thud as it came to rest in the darkness of the barrow.

The pitch blackness presented no challenge to their feline pupils. The witchers descended into the tomb, past offering plates that were filled with the dust of flowers withered decades past and stubs of tallow candles. The passage led them under the hill, to a vast central chamber lined with niches stacked six-high. Most were occupied, their occupants having decayed to naught but bone and rags. By the shape of their skulls, Lambert took most of them to be Aen Seidhe.

There was one corpse among the many that caught their interest. It was out of place compared to the others, unmistakably human even in the near-darkness. The body was that of a woman’s. Beautiful she must have been at one time, with rich auburn hair that cascaded down her shoulders like fire. Her lips had once been plump and full, and her figure was lithe and willowy. Lambert imagined that her eyes, if she had still had them, might have been blue.

A terrible wound had been inflicted upon her breast. Someone had used a wicked instrument to remove her heart. Where fair flesh should have concealed a beating heart, instead there was a gaping hole that contained nothing. The edges of the wound were neat; the weapon that had done this had been sharp, and its wielder had had steady hands and intimate knowledge of what he was doing.

Lambert sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. Underneath the cloying stench of decay was the unmistakable caustic burn of formaldehyde.

“I didn’t know they preserved their dead here,” Aiden remarked.

“They don’t.” Lambert frowned. “It’s not their way.”

“Interesting.” Aiden peered closely at the woman, eyes raking her body for details they may have missed.

“She’s missing a finger,” he pointed out, indicating her left hand. The third finger was indeed missing, severed just above the second knuckle.

“What's around her neck?"

The dull glint of gold was unmistakable. Aiden lifted the locket delicately, turning it over to peer at the inscription. _"My darling Aja—my heart is yours in life and death."_

Lambert let out a low whistle through his teeth. "That's...strangely relevant."

"I agree." Aiden let the chain slip from his fingertips. "I'm willing to wager that this is our beann'shie."

"Not a lot of other fresh corpses around here." Lambert wrinkled his nose. Fresh might have been too generous a sentiment. The air in the tomb, centuries-stale, bordered on insufferable with his amplified senses. "Not a lot we can do until nightfall. Let's head back, gather our supplies. We'll burn her body at dusk."

Aiden nodded in agreement and turned to follow Lambert back up the narrow passageway and into the mercifully clear air. They left the barrow unsealed; there wasn't much point in moving the boulder back if it had already been desecrated. As they walked down the winding paths back toward Seven Pines, Lambert did his best not to think about all the ways the coming fight could go wrong for someone who couldn't cast the Yrden sign.

~~~~~~

The village blacksmith was easy to locate by following the sound of his hammer clanging against the anvil. Sparks flew from his forge, kissing cherry-red iron and rendering it forgiving and malleable. The man who swung the hammer was both tall and broad, with a shock of white hair and a beard that obscured most of his face. His visage gave one the impression of a dwarf who had simply never been told that dwarves were supposed to be small in stature.

He eyed the witchers warily as they approached, but did not flee as the other townspeople had.

“What d’yeh be needin’?” he asked in a voice thick with a Skelligan accent.

“You Andre?” Lambert stood leaning against one of the low stone walls that encircled the forge.

“Aye.” The blacksmith plunged the glowing horseshoe he’d been shaping on the anvil into a bucket of water, which issued a hiss of protest and a cloud of thick steam. “And the two of yeh be witchers. Agnes said to expect yeh.”

“We found the body of a woman,” Aiden said, stepping forward. “Sealed in one of the ancient barrows, where she doesn’t belong. She had red hair and a golden locket round her neck.”

“Aja.” The blacksmith let out a sorrowful sigh. “She was the first the wraith took.”

“When was that?”

“One moon past. Austin, poor lad, found her body out among the barrows one morn. Were a right tragedy.”

“Why’s that?” Aiden shot Lambert a warning glance, as if he ought to know not to be so blunt. Lambert shrugged.

“She were about to marry.” Andre pulled the tempered horseshoe from the bucket with a pair of metal tongs and dropped it with a clunk onto his workbench. “Austin loved her, once upon a time. But her parents’d promised her to another. A vintner’s son, with better prospects than a gravedigger. Lad didn’t take it well.”

“You said she was the first victim of the wraith?”

The smith nodded.

“Forgive me for asking this,” Aiden said, “but are you certain it was a wraith that killed her?”

Andre’s brows knit. “Aye? Austin said he saw its mark on her.”

“The other bodies were shredded almost to nothing. We examined Aja’s corpse—she’s missing her heart and her ring finger, but her body is otherwise in excellent condition. Preserved, even.”

“What are yeh gettin’ at?”

Aiden turned to look at Lambert. “A spurned lover, knowledge of the human body, never mind the way it sought him out—”

“I agree with you.” Lambert stood and stretched. “We should find her heart. I bet he kept it somewhere.”

“Right.” Aiden dug in his pockets and pulled out a crown. “Thanks, you’ve been a big help.”

He tossed it to the smith, who caught it with a bemused expression on his face. “That all ye’ll be needin’? No weaponry or armor?”

Aiden smiled and indicated the swords at his back. “Special tools for special trades. I’m sure your work is solid, but I’m rather fond of the tried and true.”

~~~~~~

Austin’s house was barely more than a shack and much less lavishly furnished than the dead woman’s that Lambert and Aiden had been afforded for their trouble. He seemed to have relatively little in the way of possessions—the solitary dresser held only one change of clothes, and the bedclothes were nothing more than a single sheet of thin cotton and a pillow stuffed with straw.

Poverty wasn’t terribly unusual for a gravedigger. The boy had likely made a pittance for his work, though no one else in the village would have done it. It was a sad, lonesome existence that few would have undertaken willingly.

What was unusual were the souvenirs.

Lambert had seen it before. Men who went mad, clinging to shreds of their former lives like magpies decorating their straw nests with silver. In the back of a cupboard they found them—a lock of auburn hair, held together with a satin ribbon. A flower, dried and pressed flat between the pages of a book. A slender, withered finger with a gold ring still upon it.

A human heart, preserved in a jar.

Aiden retrieved it from the cupboard, cradling it in gentle hands like a priceless treasure. “Aja,” he murmured.

“Whoreson.” Lambert spat into the dirt.

“At least now we can lay her to rest,” Aiden replied. “It’s the least we can do.”

“Before we send her wraith to kingdom come, you mean?” Lambert’s words dripped in sarcasm.

“Yes.” Aiden took no notice of his tone and slipped the jar reverently into his bags. “Come on. Beann’shie’s waiting.”

It occurred to Lambert later, as they were walking along the winding pathways that led down into the necropolis, that perhaps he ought to have a bit more sympathy for the dead. After all, Aiden was one of them now.

As the sun grew low on the horizon, the witchers disinterred the young woman’s corpse and carried it to the top of the barrow, placing it in the center of the circle of withered grass where the wraith had risen. Aiden carefully placed the jar into her clasped hands, wove the dried flower into her auburn hair.

“You’ve already made it right,” he said, standing over her body with bowed head as Lambert stood awkwardly off to the side. “It’s time for you to rest.”

Aiden looked to Lambert and nodded. Lambert drew the sign of Igni, bathing the woman’s body in a stream of fire.

The flames took hold, licking their way hungrily across her withered skin, devouring the fabric of her dress. The witchers stood together, bearing witness, as the plume of smoke spiraled up toward the rising moon.

Hours passed in near silence, with only the crackling of the flames and the occasional call of a night bird to punctuate it. The body burned to embers and finally to ash. And when the last spark faded, a great wailing arose all around them, echoing off the barrows surrounding, seeming to come from every direction at once.

Lambert’s sword rang as he drew it from its sheath, the silver glimmering with a thin sheen of specter oil. The edge was sharp as a razor, and its very existence cried out for blood. He gritted his teeth, witchers’ eyes glowing in the darkness, and waited.

She came up on them like a storm, whipped into a fury by rage and sorrow, sweeping in from the darkness like an ominous cloud. Her claws were sharp, her face drawn with suffering. Even in her ethereal form, a gaping wound was visible in her chest where her heart should have been.

Lambert drew the sign of Quen—he’d be damned if he was having his eardrums burst again—and stood at the ready. The beann’shie circled them at first, keeping to the edges of the ring of burnt grass, and then, howling, descended upon them.

The witchers were ready. As the wraith drew close, Lambert threw his hand to the ground and drew the sign of Yrden. The circle of violet runes flared to life at once, crackling and ensnaring her in magical bonds. The witchers slashed and spun, dodging every desperate swipe of her claws, riposting with blades soaked in specter oil deep into her accursed flesh.

The beann’shie wailed, the sound painful even though not at full volume. It was like the reverberations of it sank hooks into Lambert’s very soul. There was a white-hot pain behind his eyes that felt as if his skull might burst. He gritted his teeth and bore it.

With a desperate wrenching, the wraith broke free of her bonds. Lambert’s Yrden dissolved into nothingness, and she blinked out of existence.

The silence was worse than the wailing. The waiting, not knowing where she’d come from next, the heavy air that pressed down on him silent except for the cry of a nightjar somewhere in the distance. Without realizing it, Lambert held his breath. His medallion buzzed hard against his chest.

The wraith flickered back into existence directly behind him, and with a vicious swipe of her claws sliced into his shoulder. Lambert’s Quen shattered in a shower of golden sparks. He let out a yell of mixed pain and rage and dodged to the right, managing to evade the worst of it. He came to rest half-crouched, one hand pressed to the wound to staunch the flow of blood, the other still brandishing his silver sword.

He could smell his own blood, sweet and hot and metallic as it ran down his armor in little rivulets. Lambert slashed at the beann’shie, his silver biting deep into her flesh. She wailed, the sound rising in pitch until it reached an unbearable volume, until the sheer force of it stunned him and forced him to clutch at his head in pain. On the other side of the circle, Aiden staggered backward.

With immense effort, Lambert threw out his sword arm and severed her tongue.

The wailing stopped at once, devolving into guttural howling. Lambert dropped to the ground and drew the sign of Yrden; the circle flickered to life once more.

“Aiden, now!” he shouted.

He needn’t have. Before the words had even left his lips, the point of Aiden’s sword erupted from the beann’shie’s throat. With one final choked gurgle and then a sigh, she collapsed into dust.

Lambert fell backward onto the scorched grass, panting. Groping blindly at his belt, his fingers managed to locate a vial of Swallow. He downed it in one gulp and breathed a sigh of relief as the pain in his shoulder immediately began to ebb and the bleeding slowed.

“Well, that certainly could have gone worse,” Aiden remarked, pocketing the trophy he’d sifted out from the wraith’s ashes. “Are you alright?”

“Will be eventually.”

Aiden held out a hand. Lambert took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

“What now?”

“We get paid.” Lambert wiped his sword carefully on his trousers and sheathed it.

“And then what?”

Lambert’s face settled into a grim line. “We ride north.”

~~~~~~

They didn’t ride north, not immediately. The prospect of one more night sleeping in a proper bed was too tempting.

With the threat of the beann’shie eliminated, the village came to life. The people of Seven Pines took to the fields in droves, working their fingers to the bone bringing in what was left of the crops. Apples, pumpkins, potatoes, sprouts, beets, and more, all brought in by the bushel. With everyone pitching in, most was harvested by the end of the day.

And it was almost Samhain. All the more reason to have a festival in celebration.

Lambert and Aiden were invited to stay for the celebration. That in itself was unusual; though Lambert hadn’t been chased out with pitchforks in the past couple of decades, it was rare for anyone to want a witcher to stick around past the completion of his task. Still, the villagers were grateful, both for the elimination of the wraith and for one of their own finally being able to rest peacefully.

The witchers saw no harm in remaining one more night. Lambert had done without quite a few meals lately, and the smell of baking pies wafting from the cottages on the eastern edge of the village was powerfully inviting. Geralt could wait.

For such short notice, the feast was quite impressive. Several long tables were set up in the center of the village around the well, laden down with roast chickens rubbed with salt and rosemary, and large flaky pastries filled with carrots and gravy and beef, and baskets of fresh apples and pears, and pies made of pumpkin and squash and allspice, and sweets made from nuts dipped in honey and then toasted over a fire. The alcohol flowed like water as well: homemade rye and pepper vodka; sweet, clear apple cider; wine mulled with spices in a large kettle.

Lambert ate like a starving man, not knowing when he’d next be afforded a hot meal, and drank until everything melted together in a colorful blur of alcohol—the young lads and maidens dancing to a wild tune as one of the farmers played a flute as if his life depended on it and Andre the blacksmith beat a skin drum as if it were an anvil and his hands were the hammers. Aiden looked on with a fond smile on his face, a crown of wildflowers resting jauntily on top of his chestnut curls.

Lambert rapidly progressed to stumbling drunk, and the music grew faster, more insistent. With a grin, Aiden seized his hand.

“Come on, let’s dance.”

“I don’t dance,” Lambert protested weakly as Aiden dragged him into the fray.

“Sure you do. It’s a lot like fighting. Just lean into it and try not to think too much.”

Lambert was more than happy to oblige the latter part of Aiden’s advice. He released his already tenuous grip on sobriety and let Aiden arrange his hands just so, and they flew into the whirl of colorful skirts and stamping feet on packed earth.

The rush of air over Lambert’s skin, the flash of joyous faces of the other dancers as they spun and wove between them, the pleasant buzz of alcohol inside his skull, was all oddly freeing. Lambert found that his feet knew the steps even if he didn’t.

As they whirled around the bonfire, Aiden threw back his head and laughed. Lambert realized faintly in a tiny, much more sober part of his mind that it had been years since he’d seen him so happy. His laugh was infectious, sweet and warm like the taste of mulled wine on his lips. The blue and violet wildflowers woven into the crown he wore made his golden eyes seem all the brighter.

The dance grew faster, and Lambert’s clumsy feet struggled to keep up. Aiden supported him, keeping him from falling when he misstepped, spinning him faster and faster until Lambert was breathless and laughing from the sheer absurdity of it all. One pocket of joy in a lifetime of sadness.

Lambert looked out at the crowd watching the dancers, their faces blurred by alcohol, the stomping of their feet in time with the music reverberating through him. Men and women, old and young, strong and frail—every soul in the village was in attendance.

As they spun once more, Lambert realized that there was one face in the crowd that he recognized.

It was a face that radiated joviality and menace somehow at the same time, one with cunning eyes and a wicked smile. The violent yellow of his jerkin stood out among the drab greys and browns of the other celebrants.

He was holding a wishbone.

It was as if time slowed to a standstill in that moment, anger and panic surging up Lambert’s throat as O’Dimm’s eyes met his. The Man of Glass stood there, hiding in plain sight, cold and calculating behind those soulless eyes. Lambert tried to shout, but everything had gone nightmare slow. He felt like he was trying to run through molasses.

Unnoticed by anyone else, Gaunter O’Dimm help up the wishbone and winked. Lambert was pervaded by a sense of impending doom. His heart squeezed uncomfortably in his chest.

O’Dimm reached up with his other hand, took hold of the wishbone, and snapped it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit I'm a bit of a bastard for ending it there but AUGH this is one of my favorite arcs of the entire story. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you did, please consider leaving me a comment! I love to hear your thoughts :)


	9. Ashes to Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings apply for this chapter! Please check the end notes for addition content warnings, or proceed if you don't want spoilers.

The wishbone broke, and so did Aiden.

He fell to the ground screaming, clutching a leg that was suddenly bent at all the wrong angles, the raucous sounds of laughter and merrymaking turning to shrieks of fear and horror as the villagers scattered and fled. Lambert scanned the crowd frantically for O’Dimm, but he was lost amid the chaos. As the villagers abandoned them, all that remained was a wishbone, small and broken, trampled down into the mud by fleeing boots.

“Aiden!” Lambert fell to his knees in the dirt beside him, alcohol-muddled mind still struggling to keep up with what was happening.

The other witcher’s face was waxen and drawn with pain. A thin sheen of sweat stood out on his skin. His teeth were clenched and bared like an injured animal’s. A howl of pain arose and strangled in his throat as he tried to suppress it.

Lambert did his best to swallow his panic and turned his attention to the wound.

The break was bad. The entirety of Aiden’s lower leg was bent at an odd angle, limp and lifeless and _wrong._ Blood flowed freely from the place where the jagged white end of a bone protruded from his skin. Lambert could see his muscles, suddenly free of their anchoring points, spasming around it.

“Fuck,” he swore, pressing his hands to his face, trying to think straight. _“Fuck._ Right.” He looked up at Aiden, who had propped himself up on his elbows and was looking at the splintered bone with abject horror. “I need to set this.”

Aiden nodded, breathing hard through his nose, and laid back. Lambert steadied his hands on either side of the fracture, took a deep breath, and yanked the bone back into place with a crunch.

Aiden’s screaming, muffled by clenched teeth, tore at the very fabric of his being. Lambert did his best to hold himself together as he fumbled with shaking hands for a vial of Swallow. He pressed it toward Aiden, who downed it in one gulp. His breathing eased.

The respite lasted moments. Lambert had just begun to let himself relax, to let the knot of fear and panic in his gut begin to unravel and replace itself with thirst for the blood of the man who had done this, when Aiden’s already pallid face went still paler.

“Oh no,” Aiden mumbled, and then turned to the side and doubled over as his body violently purged every drop of the potion he’d just drank. It pooled on the dry grass, blood-red Swallow and bitter green bile, as his entire being heaved over and over again.

Lambert could do naught but look on in horror. There was nothing to be done. Nothing at all.

~~~~~~

Some hours later, when the dust had settled, the witchers sat in silence around a fire that was more interested in smoldering wetly than burning.

They’d left the village quickly. There was no reason to stay. The people of Seven Pines, who had tolerated or even begrudgingly welcomed their presence due to necessity, certainly wanted nothing to do with them in the aftermath of O’Dimm’s appearance. They were frightened by Aiden, by they way his body had broken like a twig in a maelstrom. Lambert had heard them whispering that he was cursed as he was untying the horses. Were it not that Aiden needed his help to mount his mare, he would have taken out some of his misdirected rage on them and their detestable faces.

Given that Witcher potions were no longer an option, Lambert had had to stitch the wound where Aiden’s bone had broken the skin back together. They’d bound his leg tightly—there was no telling how long it would take to heal, but with the dressing at least it held together well enough for him to walk unassisted.

Aiden stared darkly into the stubbornly smoking campfire, looking for the first time as if the gravity of his situation had hit him. There was no delight left in him, no laughter. There was only grim resignation.

Lambert went without supper. Cooking something now seemed like adding insult to injury, and in any case his earlier meal had gone sour in his stomach. He felt sick in the core of his being. It was like the very muscle and sinew of his heart had gone black and withered with decay.

In time, the silence grew unbearable.

Lambert was used to silence between the two of them. It was something he’d always appreciated, that he and Aiden could comfortably occupy the same space for an indefinite length of time without needing to say anything to the other to keep the awkwardness at bay. But this was different. Aiden wasn’t sitting quietly at peace with his thoughts as he sharpened his sword, nor was he gathering potion ingredients or simply lying back appreciating the sky. His eyes had gone dark. The lines of his face were more pronounced, aging him severely. His hands, normally occupied with some small task, were still. He sat on a log by the fire with his forearms resting on his thighs, looking as if the weight of the world had settled fully on his shoulders.

And perhaps it had. Lambert approached him cautiously, moving so that he was sitting near him on the log but that there were still several inches separating them. He’d seen Aiden upset before. He’d seen him furious and heartbroken in equal measure, usually over something Lambert himself had done, but even in those moments he’d never turned Lambert away or refused his touch. His body language now was all but screaming a rejection of that. Lambert wasn’t entirely convinced that if he’d tried to reach out and comfort him that he wouldn’t end up with his hand sliced off at the wrist.

“What am I?” Aiden said finally, not taking his eyes away from the flames.

Lambert grasped for words and came up empty. A muscle jumped in Aiden’s jaw.

“You said you burned my body. I would have done the same for you. There should have been nothing left. My ashes should have scattered to the wind. It’s our way.” Aiden’s hand drifted unconsciously down his leg, feeling the bandages wrapped thickly around it. “So what am I made of? Where did this…this _merchant_ pull me from?”

“I don’t know,” Lambert said quietly.

Aiden sighed. “This body…it’s not going to last, is it?”

“I don’t know,” Lambert said again. “Probably not.”

Aiden closed his eyes and nodded, his lips pressing into a thin line. He looked as if he were fighting back tears. Lambert was paralyzed on the spot, unable to move closer, unable to run away, unable to offer a touch or even a word of comfort. He’d never wanted this. He’d never wished it. If he’d known that this was what O’Dimm’s help entailed…

He let the thought wither and die. Time was immutable, and revelations always came too late.

“The entire time I’ve been sitting here I’ve been wondering,” Aiden said, his vocal cords creaking under the strain of holding everything back. “Am I even the same man? I feel like I am—who else would I be? But once I’d been taken apart and burned and scattered and put back together, surely there are pieces missing. Things that fell through the cracks. There are so many things I don’t remember, Lambert. I don’t even remember dying. I don’t remember Jad Karadin, or Lund, or Hammond, or Selyse. I don’t remember how it felt when he put his sword through my chest. I don’t remember Ellander. The only thing that was in my mind when I awoke was that I needed to find you. I don’t even remember where I went to sleep before that.”

Every word stung Lambert’s skin like a barb. He gritted his teeth and bore it.

Aiden reached up and fisted his hand in his hair as if he were trying to tear it out, eyes wild with anguish. “You say you love me, Lambert, but how can you? I’m not the same man you met in that tavern in Ellander all those years ago. I’m nothing but an echo of him, a pale imitation, scattered ashes scraped together and given a voice. The Aiden you knew died a long time ago.”

Lambert finally found his voice. “That’s not true,” he said, his words sounding strange and distorted even to his own ears. “I would know you anywhere. We’re bound by fate, the two of us, and nothing can change that. There isn’t a single form you could take or place you could go that I wouldn’t know you the instant I saw you. You’re _you._ I know that.”

“Not entirely.” Aiden stared down at his boots.

“Memories are cheap, Aiden. They fade with time and distance. There’s not a damned witcher left alive who hasn’t forgotten most of his life before the Trials. That doesn’t make them different people than they were before.”

Aiden wiped at his eyes. “When did you get to be the reasonable one?”

“Sometime between pissing off the only sorceress who tolerates me and making a deal with the devil.”

Aiden laughed, and the sound was an enormous relief. It washed over Lambert in waves, the tension ebbing from his body with every peal. Aiden closed the distance between them, and Lambert wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing with a pang that this might have been the first time he apologized to Aiden for anything. “This—all of it—is my fault. But we’re going to make it right.”

They fell asleep much later, when the last embers of the fire had gone to ashes, tangled up in each other with Lambert’s arm still slung protectively over Aiden.

~~~~~~

When Lambert awoke, he was alone.

Confusion came first, followed in short order by fear and then panic. The sun wasn’t yet up, the sky a cold grey that promised awful weather to come. The ashes of the fire were cold as death. There was no sign of Aiden anywhere, nor any indication of where he might have gone. His armor and swords were missing. It was as if he’d simply vanished. And, for a terrifying second, Lambert was afraid that he had.

It took him several minutes to get his head on straight and think rationally. Aiden’s horse was still there. He couldn’t have gone far, and he’d left on foot. If Lambert concentrated, he could see his tracks in the soft earth, light and evenly balanced. He’d know the trace of Aiden’s near-silent gait anywhere.

Yanking on his gambeson as fast as he could and slinging his swordbelts over his shoulder, Lambert followed.

Even walking quickly, it took the better part of an hour to finally find him.

Aiden sat on a large boulder at the edge of a ravine, looking out at the pale sun that was struggling to rise above the tree line. He was curled in on himself, facing away from Lambert. Though he didn’t turn to face him, Lambert knew he’d heard the sound of his approach because he drew himself in tighter, as if he were trying to disappear.

“Aiden, what the fuck?” he said angrily as he approached. “I woke up and you were gone. I thought something happened to you. Can you even imagine how worried I was?”

Aiden didn’t respond. Lambert, who had reached the boulder at last, reached out to grab his shoulder. “Aiden—”

“Don’t touch me!” Aiden shouted, slapping Lambert’s hand away.

“What—” Anger flared in Lambert’s chest and abruptly died, replaced by fear and concern at the expression on Aiden’s face. “What the hell happened?”

If anything, Aiden looked even worse than he had when they’d gone to sleep. His eyes were bloodshot and red from crying. His face was drawn and his skin was mottled. Lambert noticed with alarm that his fingertips were stained with blood. He could smell it, sweet and metallic and rotten. It was on the grip of his trophy knife, on his gambeson, on the places Aiden had rested his hands on the rocks.

Lambert forced himself to take a breath and unclench his teeth. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Aiden wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t meet his eyes. Lambert sat on the boulder nearby, giving him space, but wanting desperately to be close to him. To grab his face and make him look into his eyes and _let him in_ so he could fix whatever was wrong.

Several minutes passed in silence except for their breathing. Finally, sounding hoarse and absolutely wrecked, Aiden spoke.

“I’ve been losing time, Lambert.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there are gaps. Hours that just…aren’t there. That I have no memory of. It’s like my mind is full of holes that I’m constantly trying not to fall into.”

“Alright?” Lambert said, trying and failing to make heads or tails of what he’d said. “I still don’t understand what—”

“I tried to hurt you last night,” Aiden said flatly. “Maybe even kill you.”

Lambert froze.

“Like that night in Seven Pines,” Aiden continued. “Just like that. I lost myself…and I came to at the last possible moment, with the sharp of my knife pressed against your throat. If I hadn’t woken up…”

The rest of his sentence was lost. They both knew the implication.

“But you didn’t.” Lambert turned to face him, determined that if Aiden wouldn’t meet his gaze he would at least put himself squarely in the center of his vision. “I’m fine, Aiden. Nothing happened.”

Aiden was silent. Lambert’s eyes wandered from the blood on Aiden’s fingertips to his knife to his gambeson. And then, inevitably, to the wet lump of torn muscle that sat on the ground before him a few feet away.

Lambert swallowed. “What the fuck is that?”

“I was going to kill you,” Aiden mumbled.

Bile rose in Lambert’s throat. “Aiden, what the _fuck_ is that?”

“I couldn’t risk it happening again,” Aiden said faintly. He looked up, and his eyes were unfocused.

The pieces fell into place all at once, and Lambert recoiled in horror as he took in the particular mottled tone of Aiden’s skin, the torn fabric of his gambeson at his breast, the blood…not as much blood as there should have been, but blood…

And a human heart, sitting uselessly on the ground before them.

_“What the fuck did you do?”_ he all but screamed, scrambling to his feet.

Aiden blinked, and a tear traced a path down his cheek. “I tried to make it right.”

“You—” Lambert’s mouth opened and closed uselessly. “You tried to—”

“To keep you safe,” Aiden snapped. “And it didn’t fucking work—”

“I don’t care about that!” Lambert shouted. “I don’t care about me! Where the fuck have you been? When have I ever cared what happens to me, Aiden? All of it means nothing, not a single gods-damned fucking thing, if you’re not there. And after everything—when we’re just a day’s ride from the help we need, you try to leave me like this?”

“I won’t apologize,” Aiden said quietly. “I’m not sorry. I did what I thought was right.”

“You’re a coward,” Lambert spat.

“Maybe so.” Aiden looked up, and there was fire in his eyes. “But all I can do is try to preserve what’s precious to me. That’s all any of us can do.” He took a deep breath, and the fight went out of him. “Lambert, I think it’s time for us to talk about tempering expectations.”

“The hell it is,” Lambert snapped back.

“It is,” Aiden persisted. “Lambert, look at me. Look what I’ve been reduced to. It’s time to face the likelihood that this isn’t going to end well for either of us.”

“Keira—”

“Said she doesn’t think there’s anything to be done,” Aiden said evenly. “As did Nenneke, and I’m sure the same goes for any other healer or sorceress you can think of. What I am…nothing like me has ever existed before, and for good reason. I’m an affront to nature.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s a simple fact.” Aiden rubbed his beard. “The man who did this—I don’t think he ever intended for it to be undone. I don’t know if it _can_ be undone. And as glad as I am to see your face again…” He sighed. “I’m tired, Lambert. I’m so tired. I think that when this is over I’d like to rest. It’s time.”

“Don’t,” Lambert said plaintively, the mere echo of that night standing vigil on a hilltop outside Ellander bringing him to his knees. “Don’t leave me again.”

“You know I don’t want to,” Aiden whispered, his face anguished. “But I hurt, Lambert. Every inch of me hurts. And I want it to stop, while I still have the power to make it so.”

Bitter tears welled up, try as he might to choke them back down. Lambert wept, hating himself for being so weak, hating Aiden for what he’d just done, hating Gaunter O’Dimm for his laughter and smug smile and the rune that was branded on Lambert’s forearm, a promise that his debt was still to be collected.

They were trapped, the two of them, caught between a rock and the inevitable. Lambert wasn’t the first man to try to cheat death. There had been many others over the centuries. Fear of mortality was a driving force behind human innovation. There was a reason, he realized, that none of them had succeeded.

Some prices were much too high to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content warnings:** graphic injury (more so than usual) and attempted suicide.
> 
>  
> 
> Okay guys, I'm so fucking sorry for this chapter. I really am. It hurt a lot to write it. The next one won't be quite so heavy, I promise. Feel free to scream at me over it.


	10. Crossroads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read as always by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

Temeria was no longer a no man’s land.

Half a decade separating present day from the horrors of war and a healthy dose of Nilfgaardian infrastructure had seen to that. The bandits had been rounded up, the warring factions forced to reconcile, and corpses no longer swung like strange fruit from the Hangman’s tree. The world felt strange, like an echo of its former self, remembered from a slightly different angle. The people were the same, Vizima’s city walls had been rebuilt, and the rye still burnt its way harshly down Lambert’s throat. The only real difference was that now the taverns he drank it in displayed the banners of both the Lilies and the Black Sun, and a fair number of the people drinking alongside him had Nilfgaardian accents.

Lambert and Aiden rode along highways that would have been impassable a year ago due to bandits unaccosted. In due time they made it past the burnt out husks of old villages and the muddy remnants of battlefields that already had wildflowers sprouting out of them and came upon the inn.

It was the middle of the night when they reached their destination. The two of them tied up their horses out front, making sure there were oats and water, and made their way inside.

The Inn at the Crossroads was warm and inviting despite the unforgiving landscape outside. The fire glowed in the hearth, cheerfully devouring the logs it had been fed. A ham was roasting on a spit over it, dripping fat into the flames. The crudely-painted flowers on the walls called up an unbidden memory of the way Lambert’s mother had painted the walls inside their little house.

Most of the patrons had turned in for the night already. Among those who were left were a group of staggeringly drunk dwarves who were less playing Gwent than arguing about the relative attractiveness of the personae featured on each card, a red-faced maiden and her beau who were kissing passionately in one corner, and a balding man who had passed out in the remains on his dinner some time ago, from the look of things.

They weren’t the only occupants, though. In a back corner of the tavern, away from prying eyes, Lambert spotted a familiar shock of white hair and the telltale glint of two pommels in the firelight. Geralt of Rivia sat waiting for them, head bowed and deep in conversation with a scarred ginger-haired man with a thick Redanian accent that Lambert could easily make out even at a distance.

Lambert gestured for Aiden to follow him and made for the table, sliding into the seat next to Geralt’s with no prelude. Aiden took the space opposite, next to the stranger.

“Took you long enough,” Geralt said without missing a beat. “Where’ve you been?”

“Long story.” Lambert cast a jealous glance at the bottle of rye the two of them were sharing, and Geralt slid it his way.

“Fair warning: it’s piss.” The stranger shook his head. “Always preferred a good Redanian herbal to this swill.”

“Who’s your friend?” Geralt interrupted.

“His name Aiden,” Lambert said, seeing no reason in keeping up pretenses. Geralt wasn’t stupid. Aiden’s proximity to Lambert and the cat’s head medallion he wore left relatively few options.

Geralt’s eyes narrowed as he looked Aiden up and down. “Remember killing quite a few people to help you get revenge for the murder of a witcher named Aiden.”

Aiden’s eyebrows went up.

“Yeah, you do.” Lambert help up his hands in a placating gesture. “I can explain—”

“Start talking before I kick your ass.”

“Look.” Lambert took a swig of the whiskey and coughed. The stranger was right, it was piss. He grimaced. “Aiden died. He was murdered by a witcher named Jad Karadin—”

“Skip the bits I know and get to the part where he’s sitting right across from me.”

“Right. Well, I was sitting in a tavern, drinking. Minding my own business. And somewhere in the thick of it time slows down, and a man approaches me and says that he wants to—”

“Make a deal.” The stranger cut in, and then cursed violently. “You needn’t say any more. The circumstances don’t matter. What matter are the terms.”

Lambert’s eyes flicked to Geralt. “Who’s he?”

“Something like a specialist,” the older witcher replied. “Lambert, this is Olgierd von Everec. He knows more about Gaunter O’Dimm than anyone else alive.”

“Because O’Dimm himself killed the rest of them,” von Everec said darkly. “Or ensured that they’d die for their insolence, at least.” He turned to face Lambert. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but it isn’t. In point of fact I wouldn’t be here at all were it not that I had a debt to pay.”

“What kind of debt?”

“Your friend Geralt freed me of my pact with O’Dimm.” Von Everec snatched the bottle back and took a swig. “If not for him, what’s left of my soul would have been devoured long ago.”

“Freed you?”

“It can be done,” Geralt said gruffly. “But it’s damned difficult.”

“What exactly is the nature of your pact with O’Dimm?” von Everec asked, leaning in. “Be specific.”

Lambert gestured at Aiden. “He offered to resurrect Aiden. I took him up on it.”

“In exchange for what? O’Dimm doesn’t work for free.”

“A favor.” Lambert rolled up his sleeve to expose the brand on his forearm. “He said he’d come to collect at a future date.”

Von Everec visibly bristled at the sight of the mark.

Geralt grimaced. “Not good.”

“What are you talking about? It’s a favor. How bad can it possibly be?”

“You have no idea,” Geralt said, shaking his head. “O’Dimm specializes in tricking people. There’s no telling what sort of ‘favor’ he might ask you for when he comes to collect.”

“So what do we do?”

“Best bet is to try to free you from your pact. Olgierd and I can help with that.”

“And what about Aiden?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I’m not, strictly speaking, alive.” Aiden pulled down the neck of his gambeson, revealing the gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been. “I think the exact words O’Dimm used were: ‘He shall be as he was the moment his heart stopped beating.’”

Von Everec winced. “O’Dimm gives people what they wish. Not what they want. I’m sorry,” he said, turning to Lambert, “but I doubt you’ll be able to convince him to right his wrongs. It’s not how he operates.”

Geralt nodded in agreement. “We’ll figure something out. The most important thing right now is freeing you from your pact.”

“And how do we do that?”

“Challenge him.” Geralt took a swig from the whiskey bottle, and then offered it to Aiden, who shook his head. “O’Dimm can’t resist a game. If we set our terms very carefully and win, we can dissolve your contract.”

“And then what happens to me?” Aiden asked.

“Not sure. Might stay the same. Dissolving Olgierd’s pact didn’t undo any of the effects of the deal.”

“Aye, that’s true,” von Everec said sourly. “Brother’s still dead, and my Iris too. At least I can take comfort in knowing they’re resting peacefully now.”

“What happens if we play his game and lose?” Lambert asked.

Geralt shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”

~~~~~~

The sun rose the next morning, pale and weak. Lambert, Geralt, and Olgierd had a disappointing breakfast of thin porridge and dried apple slices while Aiden looked on.

“Been meaning to ask,” Lambert said between bites. “Where’s Ciri? I thought she was with you.”

“Visiting Emhyr.” Geralt replied gruffly.

“Emhyr? Thought she didn’t want anything to do with him.”

“It’s complicated.” Geralt sighed. “He wants her to be his heir. She has no intention of being empress of Nilfgaard, but he’s the only blood family she has left. She agreed to spend some time with him, on her terms. I think he still thinks he can convince her, but trying to make Ciri do something she doesn’t want to do—”

“Is harder than convincing a succubus to join a convent. Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t know what she sees in him,” Geralt said, shaking his head. “She doesn’t owe him a damn thing. But she wanted to go, and I’m sure as shit not going to stop her.”

“Fair enough.” Lambert ate another spoonful of his gruel and grimaced. “Sorry I missed her, though. Been a while.”

“I don’t want her anywhere near this.” Geralt put down his spoon and pushed his bowl away. “Was supposed to meet her here in a few days’ time anyway. I’m leaving word with the innkeep not to follow. If everything goes well, we’ll see her in a fortnight or so.”

“And if things don’t go well?”

“Then it won’t matter anyway,” Geralt said darkly.

“You know, you’ve never exactly been a beacon of sunshine, but that doesn’t sound encouraging.”

“He’s right to be apprehensive,” von Everec interjected, “And you should be too. O’Dimm is not easily defeated, and he doesn’t like to lose. We’ll be lucky to escape at all.”

Lambert sighed. “Great.”

“Not exactly clean, ourselves,” Geralt muttered. “Both of us fell for O’Dimm’s gambit too. You’re in good company, Lambert. If begrudging.”

“Better than none.” Lambert scraped his bowl clean, hating every spoonful of the stuff he ingested, and pushed it away. “So what’s the plan?”

“If we take the main road, it’s a few days’ ride to Kovir,” Geralt said. “It’s not winter yet—Triss should still be in Pont Vanis until after the last harvest. We’ll meet her and Keira there. Hopefully they’ll have come up with a plan.”

“To kill O’Dimm before he kills us?”

Von Everec shook his head. “He can’t be killed. He’s not a man. He just looks like one when it suits him. No, the best we can do is to devise a challenge that is rigged in our favor. Our success hinges entirely on whether or not we can beat him at his own game.”

“Sounds slapdash at best.”

Aiden laid a hand on Lambert’s shoulder. “They’re the experts. I’d say take them at their word.”

“Glad you finally found someone who can tolerate your bitchy streak,” Geralt said irritably.

“Some would consider it a bonus,” Lambert shot back. Aiden pulled a face in his periphery, and he chuckled. “By the by, whatever happened to Yen?”

“Not speaking to me.”

Lambert sucked in air through his teeth. “Oh, man. What’d you do this time?”

“Mind your damn business, jackass.”

“Oh, now I’ve _got_ to know. C’mon, Geralt, spill it.”

“Lambert…” Aiden said reproachfully.

Geralt sighed wearily. “Told her I loved her.”

“And?” Lambert leaned in. “What’s the problem?”

Geralt grimaced and looked away. “She found out I told Triss I loved her, too.”

“Oh, ho ho!” Lambert felt like himself for the first time in weeks. It was easy to fall back into old routines. “Do tell.”

“Nope, that’s it.” Geralt pushed back his bench from the table and stood. “Triss’ll already be pissed enough to see me when we get there. Not making it worse by giving you any more details. Come on, daylight’s wasting.”

Lambert made a show of being put out, but still put down his coin on the table and stood.

The next half-hour was spent getting their horses ready to ride. Von Everec’s gelding watched the three witchers’ horses with interest. Roach whinnied pleasantly at Lambert and nibbled at his gambeson as he saddled his own mount. He patted her on the nose.

“I know, I know,” he murmured. “Long time, no see.”

Saddlebags and reigns secure, the four of them set off northward on the road toward Kovir and Poviss. Lambert couldn’t help but grin to himself as the wind ruffled his hair and the sun beat down from on high, warming the black leather of his gambeson. It felt right, having friends by his side to face whatever might come. As much as he’d always fancied himself a lone wolf, he’d been terrible at it. The Path was better by far with company.

“Shame Eskel’s not with us,” he remarked to Geralt as they got under way. “What’s he up to these days?”

“Last I heard, he was in Oxenfurt,” Geralt replied. “Friend of mine’s a professor there. He’s helping her write a book about witchers for medical study.”

“Who’d’ve thunk the infamous White Wolf would become a matchmaker in his old age,” Lambert teased.

“Just glad to see him happy,” Geralt said gruffly. “You should be, too.”

“I am, I am! I’ll have to pay him a visit one of these days. Who knows. Maybe one of us will get a fancy house in Toussaint, and we can all winter there instead of the holes we’ve been waiting out the snow in the past few years.”

Geralt chuckled. “Wishful thinking, that.”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

The group rode on in silence, toward the unforgiving mountains.

~~~~~~

“Forgive me for asking,” Aiden said to von Everec on the evening of the third day, when they’d already pitched camp and had settled down by the fire with some ale and some stew comprised of rabbits Geralt had caught and root vegetables Lambert had scuffed out of the earth. “But what’s your history with the Man of Glass ? You seem to know a lot about him.”

Von Everec sighed heavily. “That is a very long and dark tale, my friend.”

“True, but we’ve got a long ride ahead of us.” Aiden leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “And I’d like to learn as much as I can about the man.”

“He’s not a man,” von Everec said with a snarl. “He’s evil incarnate. But yes, if it’s what you wish, I will tell my tale. It involves your friend here.”

“My parts don’t come in until later,” Geralt said through a mouthful of stew. “Go on.”

“Very well.”

Von Everec poured a generous measure of spirit into the mug he was drinking out of, and the witchers settled in to listen.

“When I was a lad, I loved a girl named Iris. She was beautiful beyond compare, gentle, kind. She was a talented painter—her artwork took my breath away. She was more precious than anything in the world to me, and by some stroke of luck, she agreed to be my wife.” Von Everec paused and took a deep draught of liquor.

“This is where my luck ran out,” he continued. “The winds were blowing the wrong way that year. My family found itself in a great deal of debt, and the man who came to collect it took everything from us. He emptied our coffers, took my mother’s jewels from her fingers, and even ousted us from our ancestral home. My Iris’s parents wouldn’t have her marry a penniless brigand. They bade her to break off our engagement, and she did. She still loved me, but she would not elope with me against her parents’ wishes.” Von Everec smiled sadly. “She broke my heart.”

“I’m sorry,” Aiden said.

Von Everec shook his head. “Earthy misfortune is nothing next to what the gods can inflict upon a man; something I’m sure you well know.”

Aiden nodded. Lambert sat silently, listening.

“Iris’s parents arranged for her to marry an Ofieri prince. She did not love him, but it was a good match, and she never could go against her parents’ wishes. I sat in a tavern, seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle, on my last night as a man. And while I was there, spending the last of my coin on alcohol, a merchant approached me.”

“Gaunter O’Dimm.” Lambert’s lip curled.

“Yes. Also known as Master Mirror, or the Man of Glass—though you might save your breath and call him the Devil. He offered me a deal: he would give me anything I wanted, and in return I must give him my soul.”

“Seems a little unfairly weighted in his favor,” Aiden remarked.

“Yes, it might, but remember that O’Dimm is capable of anything. He is nigh omnipotent. There is no request too absurd, no outcome too unlikely. If you speak a wish, he will make it happen. For a price.”

“Words are important,” Geralt added. “What you wish and what you want aren’t always the same thing.”

“Were it that things were always so clear beforehand,” von Everec lamented. “Yes, O’Dimm grants you what you wish. I set the terms of my deal very carefully, and still I found myself tricked. I asked O’Dimm to get rid of the Ofieri prince—I said he could turn him into a toad for all I cared. I asked for my family’s estate and my fortune back, so that I could win back the love of Iris and her family, and I asked him to grant immortality for us both. In exchange for these things, O’Dimm also demanded I give him my brother’s life. I’m ashamed to say I agreed.”

“And?” Lambert raised an eyebrow.

“And O’Dimm did everything I asked of him. The Ofieri prince he turned into an enormous toad, which until recently dwelt in the Oxenfurt sewers. My family lands and titles were restored to me, my Iris came back, and I was truly immortal. But the next day, my brother was dead. O’Dimm acts indirectly—his head was smashed in during a brawl.”

“I’m sorry,” Aiden said.

“You needn’t be. I’ve done my mourning. I’m sure I’ll atone for my sins in the next life.” Von Everec upended his mug, draining it, and felt blindly for the bottle to refill it. “Not long after my requests had been fulfilled, I found my life going sour around me; for you see, in exchange for immortality O’Dimm had taken my heart and replaced it with one of stone.” He looked away from the witchers. “I could not love, nor fear, nor feel empathy. I looked at my wife and felt only emptiness. I did monstrous things to her. She grew to fear me, in time, and then to hate me, and then to feel nothing at all.”

Von Everec stopped to wet his throat, and the clearing in which they’d set up camp was deathly silent except for the calling of the nightjars and the faint rustle of the wind.

“What about the part where you promised him your soul?” Lambert asked.

“In that venture, I was very careful,” von Everec replied. “The terms of our contract stated that O’Dimm could not take my soul from me until he’d granted me three additional wishes, and we stood together on the moon.”

“The _moon?”_ Lambert said incredulously.

“Yes. I thought I was being quite clever.” Von Everec looked rueful. “This is where our friend Geralt comes into the story, and let it be a lesson in O’Dimm’s trickery. I grew tired of watching the Ofieri prince suffer, so I posted a contract on the beast that lurked in the Oxenfurt sewers. Who should appear but Geralt, the White Wolf of Rivia, to take on the job. He killed the beast—”

“And it turned into a man,” Geralt said with undisguised annoyance. “Which I was not aware of. Damn near killed me too, mind you. Around then a unit of Ofieri soldiers turned up, discovered I’d murdered their prince, and took me hostage. I was on a boat sailing to Ofier to be executed when O’Dimm appeared to me.”

“What the hell did he offer you?” Lambert asked.

“Wished to be free of my cell. O’Dimm conjured a storm that wrecked the ship I was on and broke me out. I nearly drowned. In exchange I had to help him fulfill Olgierd’s wishes, and then I’d be free. He left a brand on my face as a reminder.” Geralt indicated the spot.

Lambert winced, suddenly feeling very grateful for the mark on his forearm.

Von Everec took over the thread of the story once more. “I thought I could avoid paying O’Dimm’s price by making requests that couldn’t be fulfilled. My first wish was for Geralt to show my brother the time of his life.”

“The one who died?”

Von Everec nodded.

Lambert turned to Geralt. “How’d you manage that?”

“Blood summoning. I raised the ghost of Vlodimir von Everec and let him spend the night inhabiting my body. Wasn’t pleasant.”

Von Everec took a draught of spirit. “My second wish was for Geralt to bring me the house of Maximilian Borsodi.”

“Who?”

“Owner of an auction house in Oxenfurt,” Geralt explained. “Kept his will in a house-shaped casket in his vault. Wasn’t easy, but I managed to steal the house and bring it to Olgierd. Wasn’t what he wanted, but it fulfilled the wish.”

“Do you see now how O’Dimm operates?” von Everec asked. “The wording is most important. My final wish, one I thought impossible, was for the rose I gave Iris the day I left her. It should have crumbled to dust decades hence.”

“Except that Olgierd had wished for immortality for himself and Iris,” Geralt said. “And even after her death, she endured in a nightmare world comprised of her paintings. I met her there; she gave me the rose, which released her.”

“And I am grateful for it,” von Everec said sadly. “She’d suffered enough.”

“That’s three wishes granted,” Aiden said, looking as if he were using a particular mental stomp to make sure he retained the information. “What about the part about standing on the moon?”

“O’Dimm made me bring Olgierd to the Temple of Lilvani, in Velen,” Geralt replied. “That fulfilled my pact. Once we were there, he swept away the sand and we were standing on a mosaic of the moon.”

There was a heavy silence.

“I have to admit that’s clever,” Aiden said finally.

“Clever is what he does best,” von Everec replied. “And it’s what makes him so dangerous.”

Lambert looked at Geralt. “So how the hell did you dissolve his pact?”

“Had some help from someone who’s dead now,” Geralt said. “O’Dimm can’t resist a challenge. I offered to play him in a game of chance. If I won, Olgierd was free. If I lost, O’Dimm could claim both our souls.”

“The hell kind of game do you play with a man like that? Gwent?” Lambert’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“Very funny.” Geralt’s eyes flashed. “O’Dimm dropped me into a world he’d created. It was full of distractions. The objective was simple: find the answer to his riddle.” He smiled ruefully. “The riddle was easy enough. The problem was the answer. I needed to find a mirror, and every one I ran up to shattered before I could look inside it. But the tasks I’d done for Olgierd were good practice for outsmarting the devil himself. I filled a fountain with water and dragged him out of the reflection.”

“And that ended it?”

“As far as I can tell,” von Everec cut in. “I no longer have a heart of stone. O’Dimm has not appeared to me since. But what’s done is done.”

“It’s not much,” Aiden said pointedly to Lambert.

“No, but it is a chance,” Lambert replied. “And you think you can do it again?” he said to Geralt.

“Got no idea. But we can try.”

Aiden smiled wanly. “I suppose that’s all any of us can ask for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Olgierd von Everec!! God, I love Olgierd so much. I was super jazzed to be able to have him tell his tale in this chapter. 
> 
> We're 2/3 of the way through, now! Only 5 chapters left to go :) Thank everyone for reading and for all your lovely comments. You always brighten my day <333


	11. Over Troubled Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read, as always, by the wonderful [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

The road to Pont Vanis was long and rocky, and it grew steadily colder and wetter as the party neared the border of Kovir and Redania. The foul weather soured Lambert’s already foul mood. His boots never seemed to fully dry. The ground they slept on was wet and soggy, and there was precious little in the way of game to hunt. By the time they finally neared their destination, their meals consisted principally of hardtack and strips of fatback that had gone a bit too hard to be consumed.

Pont Vanis rose up like a mountain before them as the four of them rode toward the city gates. Though the rain still poured steadily down on their heads, being inside the walls still felt like a reprieve, somehow. They stabled their horses and made their way up the winding streets, past the fish market with its tables laden down to the point of bowing with fruits of the sea that had been alive not even a few hours before, past dingy taverns where folk had taken refuge from the storm in bottles and raucous games of Gwent, past shops bursting with finery that put anything one could find in Hierarch Square to shame. It seemed that every third person they passed as they wove their way upward and inward was a mage in some respect, their nature given away by their jewel-toned cloaks and ostentatious choice of garb.

“Are the magic users still ousted from Novigrad, then?” Aiden asked after the fifth or so stranger in sweeping robes of chartreuse and violet strode past them.

“They were still burning witches the last time I passed through,” Geralt said. “Or anyone who looks like one. They ran out of likely suspects a while ago, so now they’re burning nonhumans. Last I heard the Aen Seidhe were thinking about abandoning the city altogether.”

“And the Hierarch allows this?”

Lambert laughed derisively. “He condones it. Eternal Fire’s never been kind to people who aren’t pure blood human. You know that.”

Aiden sighed. “I suppose I’d hoped that things might have changed for the better.”

Geralt shrugged. “Things change all the time. Not necessarily for better or worse.”

They reached the palace at the zenith of the mountain without incident. “Here to see Triss Merigold,” Geralt said to a brightly-dressed guard, who was wielding a halberd. “Tell her it’s Geralt of Rivia.”

The man nodded and whispered a message to a pageboy, who dashed off to deliver it.

“You sure that was a good idea?” Lambert said. “Thought you said she might not be happy to see you.”

“No, but she is expecting us at least. And, as angry as Triss can get, she’s never turned me away.”

Von Everec looked around, taking in the splendor of the courtyard they found themselves in, with its sprawling vines and marble columns. “I’m ashamed to say I’ve never journeyed this far north,” he admitted. “I wish I’d done so in my youth. Iris would have loved it here.”

The pageboy returned in short order. “If you’ll follow me please, sirs,” he said with a furtive, wide-eyed glance at the witchers. “I’ll take you to mistress Merigold.”

He took off at a fast clip toward a door off the side of the courtyard, and the party followed. He led them through winding hallways decorated with rich tapestries and sconces inlaid with semi-precious gems, until they arrived at a heavy polished oak door on the third floor of the palace. The lad dropped into a deep bow and gestured for them to enter.

The door swung inward to reveal sumptuous apartments, all rich paneled wood and jewel-toned brocade, with bookshelves as far as the eye could see that were laden down with leather-bound volumes. Triss’s megascope was just visible through an open doorway on one end, and an enormous four-poster bed through another on the other. In the center was a large table with lions’ feet, on which were spread out books and scrolls with strange symbols and runes on them, a number of dishes filled with fruit and cheese, a carafe of wine, and a heavy silvered looking glass.

Triss Merigold and Keira Metz stood beside this table, poring over a scroll. They looked up when the witchers entered, and Triss grinned.

“Geralt! Lambert!” She ran over to them and threw a hug around each of their necks. “It’s been what, four years now?” She said in Lambert’s direction, and he nodded.

“Been in the south for the most part. Sorry, Triss.”

“And you must be Aiden.” Triss looked him up and down. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Aiden smiled wanly. “I’m sorry it isn’t under better circumstances.”

Triss turned to the fourth member of their party. “And you are…?”

“Olgierd von Everec,” von Everec said with a sweeping bow. “A pleasure.”

“Von Everec,” she murmured to herself, and then raised an eyebrow at Geralt. “Is this—?”

“Yeah,” he said shortly. “He’s here to help us summon O’Dimm.”

“May the gods have mercy on our souls,” von Everec said with a shudder.

“I have so many questions for you,” Triss said, retrieving the carafe of wine and pouring several glasses. She, Geralt, and Olgierd wandered off to one side, already deep in conversation.

Lambert made for Keira, who was still standing beside the table with one hand on her hip.

“Glad to see you made it in one piece,” she said by way of greeting.

“More or less,” Aiden replied with a strained expression.

“What do you mean?”

“More of O’Dimm’s games,” Lambert said with contempt. “Aiden’s wounded, and he can’t take witchers’ potions anymore.”

Keira made a sound of dismay. "That won't do. Come, perhaps I can repair some of it at least."

Lambert and Aiden followed her into the next room, a large portion of which was occupied by Triss's megascope. Keira's lab took up the other half, her flasks and burners and little glass jars of ground herbs and monster ingredients scattered everywhere. Between her research and Triss's, the laboratory looked as if a drove of mad alchemists had spent the better part of the last week digging through it with the intent to wreak as much havoc as possible.

Clearing a section of a low table by shoving the papers and flasks strewn across it haphazardly to the side, Keira gestured for Aiden to sit. He did so, swinging his injured leg up onto the table. Lambert grimaced at the sight of the bandage on his leg when he rolled up his trousers, ratty and stained in places with blood that had by now gone the color of rust.

Keira grimaced and tugged the end of the bandage free with manicured hands, unwinding it carefully from Aiden’s leg. Lambert had to swallow a lump of disgust when the last of the bindings fell away, revealing the wound.

It hadn’t healed in the slightest—if anything, it had festered. Its edges had gone grey and green and purple, the colors of rot, and there was purulent drainage around the rough sutures Lambert had applied to the flesh. He tried his best not to think about the smell, or the fact that Aiden was looking paler and more mottled with each passing day. Thinking about it didn’t help them fix it. If he allowed himself to dwell on it for too long, he might go to pieces.

Keira pursed her lips as she examined the wound and felt Aiden’s broken bone gingerly with probing fingers. After a moment, satisfied with her examination, she stepped back.

“It looks positively dreadful,” she proclaimed.

“Is that your professional diagnosis?” Lambert snapped back. Keira glared at him, her eyes flashing, and he did his best to swallow his tongue for Aiden’s sake.

“It must be excruciating,” she said, peering at the wound edge once more. “Are you alright?”

“Insofar as a man in my position can be alright,” Aiden replied, “Yes. To tell the truth, I can’t feel much of anything anymore. It’s all muted. Like I’m feeling it through a fog.”

“Are there others?”

“…Yes.” Aiden unconsciously brushed the place over the wound in his chest with his fingertips.

“Hmm.” Keira rested her chin on her hand. “Even if I can do nothing for your overall vitality—or lack thereof—I might be able to do something for the bone itself. It will take some time, though,” she warned, eyeing Lambert. “You may want to get some rest. I’m sure it was a long ride.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he muttered.

“Then leave me to my work. There are rooms set aside for all of you—Triss can help you find them. I’ll return Aiden to you once I’ve finished.”

Lambert was reluctant to leave, to let Aiden out of his sight, particularly after what had happened the last time he’d slipped away. He glanced at him, really _seeing_ him for the first time in days. He seemed smaller, somehow, than he’d always been in Lambert’s mind. Vulnerable. Defeated.

Tired.

“It’s alright, Lambert,” Aiden said, forcing a weary smile. “Go. I’ll come find you later.”

“If you’re sure.”

Lambert lingered in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder to see the way Aiden’s shoulders sagged the moment he thought Lambert wasn’t watching him anymore. He and Keira spoke in hushed tones, their heads tipped towards one another conspiratorially.

Keira held her hands out, letting her palms hover over Aiden’s damaged flesh, and whispered words of power. Lambert’s medallion vibrated hard against his chest as her hands flared with magic. He turned and slipped away.

~~~~~~

Later, alone in his room, sitting on the side of the bed and looking out the large window over the city sprawl of Pont Vanis, which sloped downward toward the city wall as if it were falling away underneath him, Lambert had to suppress the urge to pick up the painted urns and jeweled candelabras that decorated the room and smash them to bits against the unforgiving stone floor.

He felt helpless. Truly and utterly helpless. Since the beginning of this journey, he’d been running nonstop, never pausing to take a breath lest the things that trailed behind him catch up and devour him whole. Now he’d hit a metaphorical wall, and there was nowhere to run. And they’d found him.

There was no ignoring responsibility for what he’d done. For what it was doing to Aiden. For the way he’d suffered terribly, and would surely suffer more before the end of it all. All because of a wish made selfishly at a piss-poor excuse for a crossroads on a dark and hopeless night.

Would Aiden’s spirit continue to endure even if the body he was inhabiting decayed entirely and crumbled to dust? Would he remain bound to his physical form even as it rotted and broke around him, unable to speak or even to scream? What then? What was there to be done?

The answer was a resounding nothing. Lambert had chased down every ounce of help he could get, and the result was a ragtag band of witchers and sorceresses and one erstwhile highwayman who didn’t even want to be there. What odds could the seven of them possibly have against the devil himself?

It tore at Lambert’s soul to see Aiden suffering this way, though he knew the other man tried not to show it. It was in the lines of his face, in the way he carried himself when he thought Lambert wasn’t looking. Every second of hesitation, every dark cloud that crossed Aiden’s face for just an instant when Lambert looked away, made him want to crawl out of his own skin to get away from the guilt. It was eating him alive.

He needed something to do with his hands. He gathered his sword and whetstone, but his hands shook so badly when he drew it along the blade that he dropped it and nicked the pad of his thumb on the steel.

He swore violently and threw the whetstone, which ricocheted off the stone wall and came to rest under a bureau, and let the sword fall carelessly to the floor with a clatter.

It felt good to throw something. Lambert tore the pillows off the bed and hurled them at the opposite wall, screaming through clenched teeth as he did so, the ball of rage he’d been carrying in his chest flaming to life and taking control of his body as it forced its way up his throat.

When he ran out of things to throw, he resorted to kicking the wall over and over again until the leather of his boots threatened to split from the force of it. He collapsed to his knees, panting, his breath ragged and throat torn.

It didn’t do him a single bit of good.

~~~~~~

It was hours before Aiden finally returned, his leg bound with a fresh white cloth and affixed with a strange-looking brace. He paused in the doorway, taking in the disheveled state of the room and of Lambert himself, but said nothing. He simply sat beside Lambert and looked out over the darkened city, taking in the lights that were scattered across the ground like broken glass reflecting light up from the bottom of a dry well.

“Keira patch you up?” Lambert asked hoarsely.

“She did her best,” Aiden replied, looking extremely weary. “Dead tissue doesn’t heal. But she did set the clock back a bit.”

“What does that mean?”

Aiden pulled down the neck of his shirt to reveal a wound that had been cleaned, neatly stitched, and dressed. It no longer gaped open, revealing an empty chest, nor did it smell of death and rot. The edges were pale and bloodless instead of sickly grey and green. Even his face looked better, the mottling giving way to uniform pallor that didn’t look too out of place against his already pale skin.

“It won’t ever close,” Aiden qualified. “Not really. And given time it will happen again. But this buys us a few days at the very least.”

Lambert sighed. “Guess it’s better than nothing. How does it feel?”

“Better, I think. It doesn’t really hurt, at least. And I can move well enough to fight. I suppose that’s all I can ask for.”

They sat in silence for a time. From somewhere in the city below came the sound of a baby wailing.

Aiden’s gaze attended the horizon gravely. “The last time we were in Pont Vanis…”

Lambert swallowed. He’d been thinking the same thing too. “Was the last time I saw you alive.”

He felt like a raw nerve. Every sense was amplified to the point of painfulness. Every word stung his skin. His foot ached from attempting to take out his frustrations on the masonry. His throat burned. His head felt as though someone had tried to smash it in with a rock.

Aiden reached out to take his hand, and he flinched.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Lambert. You couldn’t have known.”

“Maybe not, but I shouldn’t have trusted the fucker,” Lambert said with venom. “Never should have left you in the first place. But I ran, like I always fucking do, and I hurt you because I wanted something to hurt and it was easy.”

Aiden’s face was unreadable. “Perhaps that’s true,” he said after a moment. “But you came back—or, you tried to. You settled my debts. I’m…I’m not a saint, Lambert. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve done you just as much wrong as you’ve done me.”

“Seems pretty likely I’m going to keep fucking things up.”

“Well, then you’re in good company.”

Lambert leaned into him and sighed. Aiden’s hands found their way to his hair and carded through it, slowly massaging the some of the tension away. Lambert realized suddenly that he was tired. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly slept.

“It’s alright,” Aiden murmured. “We’ll deal with it in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little by little, everything's coming together.
> 
> Kovir is one of my favorite locations to write in the witcher world. I was overjoyed to revisit Pont Vanis in this chapter, and even more so to bring the rest of the cast together. 
> 
> Some bittersweet news: I finished drafting the last chapter of the story a couple days ago. I still have some editing to do before everything is done and posted, but it feels strange to be finished with Lambert's story (at least for now). I'm excited to share the things to come and to hear what you think of them :)


	12. The Man in the Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

Morning broke like a crashing wave with a rare ray of brilliant sunshine settling directly on Lambert’s face and rousing him from his slumber. It wasn’t the first time he’d awoken in a strange bed—that was more the rule than the exception in his line of work, but the past few days had been such a blur that he still startled, his heart beating frantically in his chest until his eyes found Aiden, sprawled out face down beside him, and anchored him.

The witchers shuffled into Triss’s apartments, still heavy with sleep, to find that a lavish spread had been laid on the table that had yesterday been occupied with charts and maps. There were eggs and bacon, plump fried sausages that spilled hot juice down Lambert’s chin and burned him when he bit into one, tomatoes that had been fried on a griddle in the fat from the bacon, and a seemingly endless supply of fresh fruits and crusty bread.

Aiden wandered out onto the balcony while the others breakfasted, squeezing Lambert’s shoulder as he passed by. Lambert ate like a starving man, having long ago adopted the philosophy that when it wasn’t certain when the next hot meal was coming that he should consume as much as he could. Geralt appeared to be of the same mind in this respect. Von Everec, the only one of their party who seemed to be a morning person, sat back in his chair and watched with mingled interest and disgust at the way the two of them inhaled half the food on the table.

When the dishes had been cleared away, Triss and Keira spread their books and parchments out on the table once more. Several of the papers depicted magic circles of various designs. There were books on notable curses and how they had been broken. One shimmering blue volume spelled out _Practical Applications of Illusions_ in silver on its cover.

There was also a looking glass, modestly sized but constructed of heavy silver that had tarnished around its edges. This was placed in the center of everything. Triss handled it as if it were made of glass—which it was, of course, but there was an added implication in the way she held it as if it were a bomb that might go off if dropped. His medallion hummed gently under his clothes.

“What’s the deal with the mirror?” he asked as she laid it in place.

“It’s all our eggs in one basket,” Keira replied, bending down over a spell tome. “Triss and I have been working on it since I arrived.”

“Care to let us in on the plan, then?” Lambert folded his arms. Aiden wandered back in from the balcony and joined the others around the table, peering at the books and baubles with interest.

Triss smiled wanly. “The plan. It’s more of a last-ditch effort, but with luck it’ll work.”

“All the luck in the world is on O’Dimm’s side,” von Everec remarked.

“Perhaps, but it’s the best chance we’ve got.” Keira gestured at the mirror. “Triss and I have been—”

All three of the witchers’ medallions vibrated at once, loud enough for the other three in the room to notice. Triss looked to Geralt. “What’s—”

There was a low boom, and a flash of green light from outside on the balcony. The sharp scent of ozone filled Lambert’s nostrils.

_“Ciri.”_

The ashen-haired witcheress strode through the door a moment later, arms folded and looking exceptionally cross. “I hear you’re trying to start a war without me,” she said to Geralt.

“Didn’t want you anywhere near this,” Geralt said. “The message I left with the innkeep said not to follow—”

“And it also said it was dangerous.” She frowned. “You might need me, Geralt.”

“What I need is for you to stay safe.”

“I’ll go where I please.” She side-stepped him and embraced Triss.

“It’s been too long,” the sorceress said. “How was Emhyr?”

“Dreadful.” Ciri grinned. “His steward tried to make me wear a _corset._ ”

Lambert couldn’t help but laugh at the mental image of Ciri stuffed into petticoats. She punched him on the shoulder and then embraced him too.

“It’s good to see you,” she murmured.

“You too,” he said, ruffling her hair.

“From the sound of things, for once, I’m not the one who’s in trouble,” she said, folding her arms.

“Trouble is an understatement,” Geralt muttered.

“Ease off, jackass,” Lambert shot back. “Believe me, I know.”

“I take it you must be Ciri,” Aiden said, stepping forward. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“And you are?”

“This is Aiden.” Lambert stepped out of the way. “He’s…a friend of mine.”

“Cat school!” Ciri exclaimed, spying his medallion. She held up her own proudly.

“Raised a wolf, living as a cat,” he said with a grin. “You’re a hybrid. I like it.”

There was an easy camaraderie between them already that didn’t surprise Lambert in the slightest. Both Aiden and Ciri had a tendency to make friends wherever they went. It was only right that they’d take a shine to one another.

Von Everec cleared his throat and bowed deeply. “Olgierd von Everec,” he introduced. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Geralt has told me much about you.”

“Likewise,” Ciri said warily, looking him up and down.

“Easy, Ciri,” Geralt said. “He’s here as a friend. We need him.”

“Alright,” she conceded, putting her hands on her hips. “If we’re done making introductions, then, can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”

~~~~~~

It took the better part of the afternoon to bring Ciri up to speed on what had transpired. Aiden did most of the talking, with Lambert occasionally cutting in to shed light on the parts Aiden hadn’t been around for or to throw a sarcastic jibe his way when he felt that Aiden was being too honest. By the time the story had been exhausted, the golden orb of the sun hung low in the sky.

Dishes of food had appeared on the table every now and then as the day progressed, though Lambert hadn’t taken notice of anyone delivering them. When the last of them were cleared away and everyone was gathered round once more with drinks in hand, Keira took advantage of a silence that had fallen over the rest of them.

“If we’re quite finished catching up, I’d like to go over the plan.”

Ciri, who to her credit had been almost entirely unfazed by Aiden’s tale, nodded. “I’m in.”

“The hell you are,” Geralt growled. “Told you I didn’t want you anywhere near this.”

“And you’d be hard pressed to stop me,” she shot back. “Let’s not waste any more time arguing about it.”

“We’ll talk later.” He settled back in his seat, looking uncharacteristically stern. Lambert grinned to himself, knowing that this was one fight the famous White Wolf wouldn’t be winning.

_“The plan,”_ Keira continued pointedly, “is to beat O’Dimm at his own game. Since he can’t resist a challenge, so we’re going to offer up one of our own. One that’s rigged in our favor.”

“What kind of challenge?” Lambert said, leaning in.

Triss smiled and indicated the mirror. “Geralt, you said that when you played O’Dimm for Olgierd’s soul, he dropped you into a world of his own devising.”

“Yeah.” Geralt nodded. “Place was a nightmare made solid. Designed to distract me so time would run out before I found the answer.”

“This time, the world shall be ours,” Keira said, looking pleased with herself. “Triss and I have spent the past few weeks enchanting this mirror. Inside lies a world very like our own, twisted into a maze.”

“Where’s our advantage?” Lambert asked.

“Familiar ground. We’ve based the maze on Kaer Morhen.”

He turned to Geralt. “Is that going to be enough?”

Geralt shrugged. “Hope so. Never know with O’Dimm.”

Lambert gritted his teeth. “Doesn’t seem like great odds.”

“Odds are never good with O’Dimm,” von Everec said grimly. “Every deck is stacked against you. Every die is weighted in his favor. Luck is his plaything, and we’re powerless to do anything except play.”

“Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine,” Lambert shot back. “Fine. How do we get O’Dimm’s attention?”

“That’s my part to play,” von Everec replied. “I’m a practitioner of Goetia. I learnt quite a number of sordid rituals while I sought to dissolve my pact. I can summon him—though he won’t appear unless he feels like it. He isn’t bound by the same rules we are.”

“Where do we make our stand?” Ciri asked.

“Kaer Morhen,” Geralt said. “Plenty of space there, and no bystanders around to get caught up in this mess. I know,” he said, seeing the look on Lambert’s face, “but it’s our best option. Think five years is long enough.”

Lambert vehemently disagreed, but he could also see the sense in it. “I don’t like it, but fine,” he conceded. “Kaer Morhen it is.”

“We’ll depart in the morning,” Keira said. “I suggest you all get some rest. It’s going to be a long journey.”

As the group dissolved and the others made their way out of the room, Lambert remained standing by the table. In the low light of the fire, he could see his own face reflected back at him through the glass of the mirror.

~~~~~~

Lambert had never been good at listening to suggestions, and he never slept well the night before a fight anyway. The rising moon found him, along with Aiden, Geralt, and Ciri, in a tavern halfway down the mountain of the city. Those of them who were living were already several drinks deep by the time the troubadour finished his first ballad, a meandering epic about the fall of Radovid’s line. It had been a bit dry for Lambert’s taste, but he had to admit the lad had a good voice. With some more inspired material, he could have given Dandelion a run for his money.

Ciri thrashed them all quite solidly in Gwent, fleecing Lambert out of two of his best cards in the process. He found himself more proud than indignant—the wins were good ones, and even if his brain weren’t fuzzy with alcohol he doubted he’d have been able to beat her.

“Where the hell’d you learn to play like that?”

She grinned. “Band of horse thieves who sheltered me once. Scoia’tael.”

“You gotta tell me that story sometime.”

“It’s a long one.”

Too drunk to continue playing cards and not excited by the prospect of losing even more of his carefully curated deck, Lambert turned on his bench so he could lean back against the wall and drained his beer. “Let’s hear a story,” he suggested. “Sure _one_ of you has something good.”

“Don’t look at me,” Geralt muttered.

“C’mon,” Lambert wheedled. “Tell us more about Yen an’ Triss. I hear hell hath no fury like a sorceress scorned.”

“You’re one to talk,” Geralt shot back.

“Please don’t,” Ciri said, shaking her head. “There are some things I’d rather not know.”

“Contracts, then,” Lambert suggested. “Had any good ones lately?”

“Ciri brought down a royal wyvern last month,” Geralt offered.

“Saw her do that when she was ten,” Lambert said, waving his hand dismissively.

“I have a story,” said Aiden, who had until this point been sitting rather quietly.

Geralt raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“It took place several years ago, in Zerrikania, before I met Lambert.” Aiden looked down in his hands as if he were lost in thought. “I was born in the Northern Realms, but after the schism in my school I chose to wander far, to separate myself from their reputation. In those days, all the men of these lands thought of us as monsters.”

“Many still do,” Geralt remarked.

“And with good reason. Though my school is all but forgotten now. There are so few of us left.”

Lambert thought of Karadin and gritted his teeth. Geralt gestured for Aiden to continue.

“I was passing through a village and received a contract. The people of the village were succumbing one by one to a mysterious illness. The victims would go to sleep healthy and be found the next morning dead, pale and mottled, with no marks on their bodies. They thought it was a curse.”

“Guessing it wasn’t,” Lambert said.

Aiden shook his head. “No. At first I thought it might be infection, brought on by unclean water, but the well was pure. There was a small stream just outside the town, but when I asked the villagers if anyone had drunk from it they simply shook their heads and said that no one went there. I tested the water there too, just to be certain—it was pure.”

“Then what was killing the villagers?” Ciri asked, leaning in.

“It didn’t make any sense until I examined the corpses. They were all men—none of the women or children had been harmed. I cut one of them open and his lungs were full of water. It didn’t make any sense, so I autopsied the others and found the same. They all drowned on dry land.” Aiden leaned back in his chair. “I went to back to the stream that night, and I found a rusalka—very scared, and very far from home. I think perhaps a storm had washed her downstream from the forest where she lived in the mountains. She ran when she saw me, but I convinced her to come out. I don’t think she meant to hurt anyone—she was frightened, and the men working in the fields were unfortunate enough to get too close. She was killing out of self-defense.”

“What did you do with her?” Geralt asked.

“Explained to the villagers what was happening, and asked them if they wished me to kill her. I don’t like hunting sapient creatures, but she’d taken many lives. I expected them to want retribution.”

“Taking it from your tone they didn’t?”

Aiden shook his head. “No. The villagers considered water spirits to be a blessing, especially living on the edge of the desert. It would be inviting the gods’ wrath to harm one. They left her offerings instead, and gave her stream a wide berth. No more deaths.”

“And they paid you full price, did they?” Lambert said testily.

“I think you know the answer to that as well as I do,” Aiden replied. “If memory serves, they gave me half the agreed-upon amount.”

“And they wonder why we’re dying out,” Lambert grumbled.

“You sound like Gaetan.”

Geralt blanched.

Aiden raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Ran into a witcher named Gaetan a couple years back in a village called Honorton. Cat school.”

“With an attitude that could sour milk?”

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

Aiden’s expression was grim. “What happened to him?”

“He happened to himself. Some villagers attacked him after he completed a contract because they didn’t want to pay. He murdered every last one of them in return. Men, women, even infants. It was a massacre.”

Aiden’s already pale face went still paler. “I…suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. He was always hot-tempered.” He looked down at his hands. “Did you kill him?”

“Far as I know he’s still alive.”

“You let him go?”

“Not my place to render judgment.” Geralt threw up his hands. “They don’t call me the Butcher of Blaviken for nothing.”

“Well…” Aiden sighed. “I suppose it’s a relief to hear he’s still alive. I had begun to wonder if I was the only one of us left.” He flexed his fingers and frowned. “More or less, anyhow.”

Lambert reached out and covered Aiden’s hand with his. “We can find him, you know,” he said. “After this is all over.”

“I’d like that,” Aiden said, with an expression that made his thoughts on the likelihood of that happening quite clear. Lambert chose to ignore it and drained his mug of beer.

“It’s getting late,” Geralt remarked after a few moments of silence. “We should head back, get some sleep before we ride out in the morning.”

Lambert groaned, his ass already hurting at the thought of yet another day spent in the saddle. He’d spent so much time on his horse in the past week that it felt like the leather of the saddle was going to fuse with his trousers. Geralt was right, though. The night was precious short, and there was no telling when he’d next have an opportunity to sleep in a proper bed in the days to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many characters with fun voices to write! I don't often do a cast of this size in the same scene, and I really enjoyed figuring out all the ways these very different people might interact if they were to meet. This arc was a lot of fun for me (the arcs that take place in Kovir always are, for some reason). Consider this the calm before the storm ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	13. Wandering in the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read as always by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)!

The way to Kaer Morhen was long and winding, and a great deal more treacherous than it had once been. The far north still felt the effects of a war not long lost. What remained of Kaedwen had fallen into utter disarray in the aftermath of the death of King Henselt and never recovered.

The party trod lightly as they crossed the border from Kovir, keeping off the main roads, and bearing hard north when they approached the Kestrel mountains to take the road less traveled through the mountain passes. Lambert cast a wary eye to the grey skies overhead as the journey progressed, not missing the sharp bite to the air and the shortening days. The harvest season was all but over. Winter would come soon, with its blankets of smothering white. If they were lucky enough to survive their encounter with O’Dimm, there was a good chance they’d all be trapped in Kaer Morhen until the passes thawed in the spring.

The sorceresses accompanied them on horseback, rather than traveling ahead via portal. Though Keira cited the need to transport her megascope and not trusting Lambert to do it himself, he suspected that she and Triss were hesitant to arrive before the others for the same reason none of the wolves had gone back. The castle walls were steeped with too many painful memories. They had to face them together, or not at all.

The party kept to the north, giving the capital city of Ard Carraigh a wide berth. As it still was in other kingdoms, nonhumans were always the first target of aggression when things fell apart. Though it would be all but suicide for any man to be foolish enough to attack four armed witchers, it was better not to risk becoming embroiled in a pogrom. Lambert could tell that Geralt, chronic meddler that he was, remembered this well. His hand often strayed unconsciously to the places his belly had been speared with a pitchfork all those years ago.

A few days into their journey, the trees and boulders began looking familiar. Roach’s hooves remembered the way to the hidden beginning of the Gauntlet. With Geralt leading the way, the seven of them began the perilous trudge up the path to the fortress.

Ciri dismounted her horse and handed the reins to Lambert, darting ahead to mark out the traps and pitfalls that lined the path. She knew them better than anyone—she’d grown up in these woods, just like the rest of them had, but the memories were fresher for her than for those of them who hadn’t had to run the Gauntlet in decades.

The path ran along rocky ravines, criss-crossed with the trunks of fallen trees, which threatened to rot through and collapse on top of them as they passed underneath. Screes of loose rock crumbled away under their horses’ hooves in places, leaving behind patches of damp earth through which the whiteness of bone occasionally poked out. Lambert’s gaze found an empty eye socket and he swallowed, remembering his own voice lecturing a younger witcher on the perils of the path. _More seasoned urchins have broken their bones or lost their lives in the Gauntlet than there are whores in Novigrad’s brothels._ The boy had gone out to train one day and never come back. Lambert wondered bitterly if the skull, broken into fragments by the teeth of animals and time, might have belonged to him.

With Ciri carefully marking out the hazards that lay ahead, they passed through the Gauntlet unharmed. As they crested the last rise, the grey stone walls of Kaer Morhen rose up in the near distance. Lambert tried to swallow the hard lump that appeared in his throat, flashes of memories of the first time he’d made this journey, dragged kicking and screaming on the back of Vesemir’s horse, and the last time, battered and broken and lost without Aiden, nearly overwhelming him.

Even Geralt looked more stoic than usual, his lips pressed into a thin line and his expression grave. Only Aiden and von Everec were unaffected by the bitter taste of memories best forgotten as the party rode down the narrow path to the keep.

The sun slipped below the horizon just as they forded the river, plunging the valley into darkness. For a moment there was only the pale light of the moon, which struggled to shine through the veil of clouds surrounding it, and then a torch flared to life on the top of the battlements.

Another followed in quick succession, and then another, fire racing along the walls of the keep as the torches and braziers burst into flame one by one. Lambert’s breath caught in his throat. Triss’s spell—for a moment, just a moment, he could almost imagine that Vesemir was there, walking the walls, lighting the torches as he had every night for decades.

There was an empty sense of homecoming as they rode across the drawbridge and through the smashed portcullis that still bore the marks of Imlerith’s rage all these years later. The sound of their horses’ hooves on the cobblestone echoed back harshly from the walls surrounding. Geralt dismounted Roach, dumping the rotting hay out of the feeding trough and replacing it with fresh grain they’d brought with them. There was still fresh water—the trough was fed by a spring, and had never run dry in Lambert’s memory.

Though the rime and frost had long melted, marks of the Hunt’s attack scarred the fortress everywhere Lambert looked. The cobblestones were still stained the color of rust in places with blood. Fallen blades littered the ground, corroded through from being exposed to the elements for so long a time. The walls near the battlements were scorched from the heat of Triss’s fireball attacks. The ground was cracked deeply in places, and the gates to the inner courtyard dangled from their hinges like loose teeth.

The keep hadn’t changed at all in half a decade. The stones were a bit looser, and one of the outer towers had finally made good on its threat of collapsing, but the interior of the fortress had remained exactly the same as the day Lambert and Eskel had last ridden out. It was all still there—the crumbling and faded frescoes, the scaffolding everywhere, the maze of bookshelves, and even Lambert’s still.

He laid a hand on it fondly, feeling oddly happy to see the piece of junk. It was familiar, above all else—in a world that was constantly changing around them, and not always for the better, he was pleased to see one thing that hadn’t changed in the slightest. Though he was sure he’d bottled the last of the vodka he’d distilled here, the damnable thing had still managed to leak _something_ onto the floor. He couldn’t help but laugh.

The others had set about unloading their gear and laying claim to the cots that were scattered around the great hall. No one placed their rucksack on Vesemir’s bed; it was implicitly understood that it was to remain empty.

Geralt got to work setting logs in the fireplace, which he lit with a shot of Igni. The wood was bone dry and burst into flames immediately, illuminating the hall with a soft amber glow. Aiden wandered the perimeter of the room, taking in the high ceilings and the walls that had fallen far into disrepair.

“I was kind of hoping you’d get to see it under different circumstances,” Lambert said, joining him. “We could’ve wintered here. Always hated it, but…it’s home. It took a long time for me to realize that.”

“I like it,” Aiden said with a smile. “It’s very different from where I was trained.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, Kaer Morhen feels inviting, for one.” Aiden gestured around at the warm colors, the books, the rugs. “The witchers from my school were trained in a fortress as well, but ours was elven in origin and built for warmer times. I mostly remember that it was cold. I know it’s cold here in the literal sense—” he clarified, seeing Lambert raise his eyebrows. “I meant more…austere. We weren’t expected to collect possessions. You couldn’t take them with you on the Path.”

“Small comforts,” Lambert murmured, glancing at his still and the chest at the foot of his cot.

He’d left a lot behind when they abandoned the keep. He was almost surprised to find his worldly possessions still waiting for him, exactly where he’d left them all those years ago. Abandoning the fortress had felt so final at the time. There was a part of him that had half-expected it to vanish entirely the moment its purpose had been served, but here it was, more or less still standing.

Not unlike Lambert himself.

The fire was by now roaring in the fireplace, and the rest of their supplies had been unloaded and unpacked. Lambert, as the only halfway decent cook in the party, was conscripted into turning the ingredients they’d brought with them into dinner for everyone.

He ended up making a stew of venison and rosemary, with potatoes and parsnips and even a few carrots that Triss had snuck into their saddlebags at the outset of the journey, seasoned with garlic and salt and ground black pepper from his potion stock. Von Everec surprised everyone by making himself useful chopping tubers for the broth, saying something about how he’d used to help his wife in the kitchen, before, and then trailing off. Lambert didn’t need to ask before what. He felt a pang of sympathy for the man.

The stew simmered in a large cast iron cauldron suspended over the fire, filling the hall with a tantalizing aroma that made Lambert’s mouth water. Aiden sat on a table near the fire, legs crossed, with a somewhat wistful smile on his face.

“Smelling it’s almost as good as getting to taste it,” he said in response to Lambert’s raised eyebrow. “I’ve missed your cooking, you know. Especially the porridge…”

Lambert squeezed his shoulder in apology. “I’ll make you some when it’s all over.”

Aiden smiled wanly. “I’d like that.”

Bottles of spirit were opened and poured out between six mugs, and the stew was dumped by steaming ladlefuls into rough-hewn wooden bowls Ciri had retrieved from the pantry. It certainly wasn’t as sophisticated as the fine Koviri cuisine they’d supped on several nights previously, but the stew was hot and stuck to the inside of Lambert’s ribs in a satisfying way. He wasn’t the only one who scraped his bowl clean and went back for seconds.

Lambert could almost imagine in the moment that life was normal. With the sky outside already threatening snow and the castle as full as it had been in recent years, he could almost pretend this was a joyous gathering and not a somber one. The seven of them, wintering together under one roof. Circumstance and misfortune had often kept them apart over the years. It was rare, even unprecedented, for him to have everyone he wanted to protect together under one roof. They were just missing Eskel. And Vesemir.

His heart caught in his throat for a moment, and he swallowed it back down. The old man was still there, after all—Lambert would have eaten his boots if Vesemir’s spirit had settled anywhere else. He was literally part of the mortar now. Lambert thought back on all the times he’d gotten stuck working on the damnable masonry with the old man during the winter in the old days. Of course he’d griped and complained the entire time, but looking back through clear eyes he’d almost enjoyed it. It was like having a family.

_Wolves aren’t meant to hunt alone, _he thought to himself later, when von Everec and the sorceresses had gone to bed and the four witchers sat together on the cliff side overlooking the valley where they’d laid Vesemir to rest. His sword stuck up out of the earth like a strange flower, reflecting the dim light of the torch they’d brought out with them for the sake of Ciri, who couldn’t see as well in the dark as the rest of them.__

__Aiden leaned into Lambert’s shoulder and sighed as the other three talked, passing a bottle back and forth between them and telling all their best stories about Vesemir, and growing up at Kaer Morhen, and winters spent holed up behind crumbling castle walls and doing their best not to tear each others’ throats out. Lambert’s impression of the old man had Ciri laughing until there were tears of mirth running from her eyes, and even managed to elicit a grin from stony-faced Geralt._ _

__It was a good send-off, one they hadn’t had time for four years ago, with the icy blades of the Wild Hunt bearing down on their necks. Some small weight lifted from Lambert’s soul. It was good to laugh, and to feel the warmth of potato vodka spreading through his belly, and to stumble back into the castle arm-in-arm with his brothers and the man he loved. Moments like these were rare, and more precious than gold. He cradled the memories in his alcohol-fuzzed mind and held them tightly as the fog of sleep finally rose up to overcome him.__

__~~~~~~_ _

__The next morning dawned bleak and grey, with the promise of a storm threatening in the distance, just beyond the mountains. Lambert could smell it on the wind, all lightning and hail and turmoil._  
_

__By the time everyone who felt like eating was finished with breakfast the heavy clouds, hurried along by insistent winds, had all but blocked out the sun. It might as well have been night, for how dark it was inside the fortress. No light filtered in through the windows. The fire in the kitchen grate threw strange and threatening shadows up on the walls._ _

__Von Everec sat alone by a window, looking out into the darkness and looking, for the first time, well and truly frightened. He was oddly smaller like this, his bravado gone, the gallantry dispensed with. He fidgeted with a heavy gold ring on his left hand with a stony expression on his face as Lambert sat sharpening his swords at a nearby table._ _

__“Those won’t do you any good,” Von Everec remarked, not looking in Lambert’s direction. “O’Dimm can’t be killed. He isn’t a man or a monster. I doubt silver or steel would be able to pierce his flesh, no matter the skill of the wielder.”_ _

__“Helps me think,” Lambert said gruffly, working oil onto the silver with a rag. “And given what Geralt’s said, seems like there’s a good chance we might have more than just O’Dimm to contend with.”_ _

__“Aye, you’re likely right there. Every game he plays, he plays on his terms. Doesn’t matter how carefully we plan it, how silvered our tongues. He’ll find a way to twist our words and use them against us.”_ _

__“We’ll be ready when he does.”_ _

__“I hope you understand what’s truly at stake here,” Von Everec said, rising from his perch, still spinning his ring around on his finger. “If we lose, we shall all meet with a fate worse than death.”_ _

__The hollowness of his voice sent an involuntary chill down Lambert’s spine. This was the voice of a man who had watched his entire life crumble to ashes before him and been powerless to stop it. This was the voice of a man who had watched everything he loved and held dear wither and die as he remained the same, unchanging, and the earth claimed the bodies of the only two people who had ever mattered to him. Heart of stone or no, Lambert could only imagine what that did to a man._ _

__He sheathed his blade and went off in search of Aiden, finding him on the other side of the fireplace in the kitchen, tending to his own silver and steel._ _

__“Sharp enough to peel a drowner’s eyeball,” he remarked, setting the whetstone aside._ _

__“It’d better be.” Lambert sat beside him. “Are you ready for this?”_ _

__“Is anyone ever ready to confront the devil himself?” Aiden rubbed at the wound in his chest unconsciously. “My bones feel strange, Lambert. I don’t quite know how to describe it. Just a general sense of wrongness, I suppose.”_ _

__“It will all be over soon.”_ _

__“You know my thoughts on the matter.” Aiden sighed. “Lambert, if it comes down to it—”_ _

__“We’re not discussing this,” Lambert said, holding up a hand. “Triss and Keira’s plan is going to work. We’ll dissolve my pact and free you from O’Dimm’s influence.”_ _

__The expression on Aiden’s face was something like pity. “Do you really believe that?”_ _

__“I have to.” Lambert said grimly, looking down at his own clenched fists. “I have to.”__

__~~~~~~_ _

__Any doubts Lambert might have had about von Everec’s proficiency were quickly dispelled once the man set to work._  
_

__After some heated deliberation, the group had decided that they would make their stand at the top of the fortress, on the roof of a tower. There was plenty of space to move about in the event that the confrontation devolved into violence, and no furniture or armorer’s dummies to trip over. They were exposed to the elements here, true, but it was far preferable to being trapped in a small room with the devil himself._ _

__Von Everec moved about on hands and knees, chalking a complex runed circle with a pentagram at its center onto the damp stone. His focus was absolute; he was aware of neither witchers nor weather as he worked. When he was finished, the design filled most of the empty space._ _

__At each point of the pentagram, he placed a beeswax candle pillaged from a forgotten candelabra in one of the towers. Geralt followed behind, lighting each as it was placed with the sign of Igni. Satisfied with the stage he’d set, von Everec stood and dusted the chalk from his hands onto his robes._ _

__“O’Dimm has a flair for the dramatic,” he remarked, surveying the harsh lines and arcane symbols that ringed the circle. “If this doesn’t attract him, nothing will. He always made rather a point of not appearing when summoned by me, but that was part of his torture. You may have better luck.”_ _

__“Where did you learn to do all this?” Triss asked, kneeling to examine a swath of runes. She appeared intrigued and disgusted at the same time—Goetia was verboten for magic users, and considered to be one of the most twisted and vile of practices. Its forbidden status was superseded only by necromancy._ _

__Von Everec smiled sadly. “Desperation is an effective teacher.”_ _

__“Time makes fools of us all,” Keira said from behind them._ _

__Lambert turned to see her holding the enchanted mirror, balancing its edge on her hip._ _

__“You sure we should have that out in the open?” Lambert asked. “Seems stupid to put all our cards on the table right away.”_ _

__“O’Dimm already knows every hand you’ve ever held,” von Everec replied. “If he appears, it’s because he wishes to. To tell the truth, he may find your offer more interesting knowing what’s in store.”_ _

__“That’s it, then,” Geralt said, folding his arms. “Nothing left to do but summon O’Dimm. You sure we’re ready?”_ _

__The members of the party shifted and took positions around the circle, hands reaching for the hilts of blades and feet settling into fighting stances. Keira stayed precisely where she was, still holding the mirror. Triss stood beside her; the sorceress snapped her fingers, and a ball of fire flared up in her fist. Lambert and Aiden made their stand together as they had so many times before, backs turned slightly toward each other, covering each others’ blind spots. Geralt and Ciri’s silver rang as they drew their blades from their sheaths._ _

__“Do it,” Lambert said through gritted teeth._ _

__Von Everec knelt in the center of the circle, body language screaming that he would rather be anywhere else. He bowed his head, and for a moment, there was silence._ _

__Von Everec breathed in, and all four of the witchers’ medallions set to humming at once. The flames of the candles guttered as if in a strong wind, though the air was still and suffocating. Sparks flew inward toward von Everec’s body as he curled his hands into fists._ _

___“Oudoianu fesus.”_ Von Everec’s voice thrummed with power. Fiery runes flared to life and bound themselves in chains around his arms. _“Soba camisa iada! Soba camisa aberaasas! Gaunter O’Dimm, I summon thee!”__ _

__The runes flared, all but consuming von Everec’s body, as if he was immolating himself. The flames of the candles burned high, reaching desperately skyward. Lambert’s medallion felt as if it were trying to tear itself from the chain around his neck._ _

__And then—silence._ _

__The flames engulfing von Everec’s body and melting the candles down to useless stubs extinguished at once, as if snuffed out by a great hand. The witchers’ medallions stopped vibrating. It was as if time had suddenly ceased. The silence went on for several agonizing seconds, until Lambert was all but certain that it hadn’t worked at all—_ _

__“Olgierd von Everec,” a familiar voice spake from the shadows. The hair on the back of Lambert’s neck stood on end. “You’ve gone to a great deal of effort to summon me.”_ _

__“Not by choice,” von Everec said, rising to his feet. “I’ve no desire to lay eyes upon you, yet I’ve summoned you all the same. Show yourself!”_ _

__“I was never hiding.”_ _

__Lambert could hear the smirk in O’Dimm’s voice. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. His eyes scanned their surroundings wildly for the man’s yellow jerkin, but found only crumbling stone._ _

__O’Dimm began to whistle; a mournful, menacing tune that Lambert had only ever heard once before. He ground his teeth. Where was the bastard?_ _

__Almost as soon as he’d finished forming the thought he appeared, standing on the edge of the tower with his arms wide in a welcoming gesture as if he’d always been there. Lambert bristled._ _

__“Such a lovely reception,” O’Dimm remarked at the sight of them, hostile and armed to the teeth. “I’m truly honored.” He stepped forward, his gaze drifting across them one by one._ _

__Lambert grimaced. Whenever the man’s cold eyes met his it felt as if he were scrutinizing the scars on his very soul._ _

__“Geralt of Rivia,” O’Dimm remarked as he approached the infamous White Wolf, the mask of congeniality dropping from his face at once. “I can’t say I’m pleased to see you.”_ _

__“Likewise.”_ _

__“And Lambert,” he said, stepping toward him, facade in place once more. “Are you not pleased with the outcome of your wish? I granted what you asked of me, word for word.”_ _

__“I think we both know that’s not true,” Lambert spat._ _

__O’Dimm chuckled as if greatly amused. “My dear misguided witcher, it’s hardly my fault if you took no notice of the fine print. I did what was requested of me, down to the letter.”_ _

__Lambert yanked up his sleeve roughly, exposing O’Dimm’s brand on his arm. “I want to end our pact. Remove your mark from me.”_ _

__“Or what, you’ll slit my throat with those very threatening swords of yours?” O’Dimm threw back his head and laughed openly. “I think you’ll find them to be quite useless.”_ _

__“No.” Lambert shook his head. Satisfying though it might be to use the sharp of his sword to scrape O’Dimm’s face free of his skull, it wouldn’t help Aiden. “I challenge you to a game. If I win, you let me go, and spare Aiden.”_ _

__“And if you lose?” O’Dimm’s lip curled._ _

__“Then I forfeit my soul.”_ _

__“And what precisely do you propose we play?”_ _

__“A contest of my own devising,” Keira Metz said, stepping forward. “It’s quite simple. Constructed within this mirror is a maze. Triss and I will use our magic to send you both within it. The first to find the center wins.”_ _

__“Intriguing.” O’Dimm sauntered over to her. “But if I let you set all the terms, the challenge is hardly fair. After all, Geralt here has defeated me once. It would be quite bad for business if I made a habit of losing in games of chance. I’d like to propose a condition of my own.”_ _

__Lambert raised an eyebrow._ _

__“You must all play.” O’Dimm gestured around the circle. “And wager your souls. Make your offer lucrative enough to be worth my time. The sorceresses may remain—I presume the two of you designed the maze?”_ _

__Triss and Keira nodded._ _

__“Then it would certainly present an unfair advantage to have you within it. But the five of you who remain must best me in order to free your friend of his pact. Are you truly willing to risk your souls for him?”_ _

__Of those who remained, von Everec was the only one who displayed open hesitation._ _

__“You owe me, Olgierd,” Geralt growled._ _

__Von Everec bowed his head. “I suppose I have no choice. I’ve been living on borrowed time for decades anyhow.”_ _

__“Then it’s settled.” O’Dimm clapped his hands. “We shall shake on it.”_ _

__Lambert stepped forward, remembering that the last time he’d shaken hands with O’Dimm had sent him careening down the path to destruction, and offered his hand. O’Dimm took it, squeezing him in an iron grip._ _

__“You can’t win,” he said with an unsettling smile. “But you already know that.”_ _

__Triss and Keira set out the mirror and gestured for those remaining to stand in a circle around it._ _

__“Reach out and touch the glass, and you’ll be transported inside,” Keira said. “To escape, you must locate the center of the maze.”_ _

__“Any helpful hints?” Lambert asked, his throat suddenly dry._ _

__“The center of the maze is the cornerstone,” Triss said cryptically. “The thing that holds Kaer Morhen together.”_ _

__“Enough talk,” O’Dimm said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He reached out and placed his fingers on the silvered glass with aplomb. “Let the game begin!”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two chapters left!!
> 
> I love this ensemble cast so much, guys. What a fun and colorful group of characters to get to play with. I really enjoyed this entire sequence with them returning to the fortress for the last time. 
> 
> Also, update schedule changes: I really, really want the last chapter posted on a specific date, so in the interest of that I'm accelerating the posting schedule for the next two chapters (see, you can't be mad at the cliffhanger now)!  
> Chapter 14 will be posted next Monday, 10/21  
> Chapter 15 (the last chapter!!!) will be posted on Thursday 10/31
> 
> c:


	14. The Realm of Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion/)!

The world dissolved.

The one that re-formed around Lambert moments later was wrong, distorted, as if it had been chewed up by some great beast and then spat out again. On the surface it looked like Kaer Morhen, but pieces of it were warped and missing. Great cracks ran through the fabric of reality, like shards of a looking glass that had been splintered into a million pieces.

There was no sign of O’Dimm, nor of the others. Whereas Lambert had been standing on the parapets of the highest tower, he now found himself with his boots planted firmly on the dusty stone floor of the guest room Triss had always stayed in when she’d wintered there. The maze drew from memories more than reality—the rich furnishings that no longer adorned the space were back, and a fire blazed merrily in the brazier in the center of the room. Looking out the window over the valley, Lambert could see mountains locked in ice. The wind howled and tore at the stones of the tower, but failed to find purchase.

“Find the cornerstone,” he muttered to himself, casting his gaze about the room. He wondered where the others had landed. No way in hell was he going to find any cornerstone up here. He pulled open the heavy oak door, revealing the darkness of the corridor outside, and stepped through it—

To find himself deep in the dungeons, in the damp and slimy corridor that had once led to the laboratory. There was no sign of the rubble that had rendered it inaccessible following the Salamandra attack some years prior. He could smell mold and bitter unguents, and hear the thrumming of the Place of Power in the darkness nearby.

He took a few cautious steps forward, unsure where next the maze would convolute itself, and everything dissolved around him.

For an instant he believed it was a trick of the maze itself, but in the small grey reality where he found himself there were no cracks. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t alone.

There was a body on the dusty flagstones in front of him.

Lambert’s mouth went dry. He would have known who it was in an instant, even with the ink blue fabric of his armor rotted to rags and those chestnut curls matted to his skull by viscous ooze. He was bloated, his skin covered in sores. The cloying stench of decay permeated Lambert’s senses. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

“Bastard,” he choked out, falling to his knees and rolling the corpse over to expose Aiden’s face. His flesh didn’t sit quite right on his bones. Rats had plucked out his eyes. His lip was split and caked in congealed blood.

He was, by all rights, quite dead.

Lambert sat there in abject horror, trying to puzzle out the timing in his head, in steadfast denial of how this could be possible. He brushed Aiden’s cheek with his fingertips.

A hand shot up and grabbed his wrist, so tightly as to threaten to crush the bone, clinging as if nothing would make it let go. Lambert yelped and scrambled backward, yanking his arm out of the corpse’s grasp.

“You,” Aiden croaked, staring him down with sightless eyes. “You did this to me, Lambert. This is all your fault…”

Lambert bit his tongue so hard as to draw blood and got to his feet, holding his blade in a white-knuckled grip. “O’Dimm!” he roared. “Show yourself, you son of a whore!”

O’Dimm’s disembodied cackling echoed around him, raising the hairs on the back of Lambert’s neck. “I take it you don’t like my little reminder of what’s at stake.”

“This wasn’t part of our deal!”

“You built the maze. I simply provided the monsters.” Lambert could hear the smirk in O’Dimm’s voice. “Nothing in our agreement forbade that. One would think you’d have learned to choose your words more carefully by now.”

Aiden’s corpse was dragging itself along the floor, toward Lambert’s boots.

“This is what is to become of him,” O’Dimm said dispassionately. “Trapped for eternity in a decaying vessel, unable to find release even when it finally crumbles around him. Can you bear that, witcher? Can your soul bear the strain of watching him die every minute that you spend together?”

“You forget,” Lambert said coldly. “I’ve watched him die already. I’ve felt this pain already. There is nothing—” he raised his sword up high— “you can do to me—” he plunged it downward, through the center of Aiden’s chest, until the point struck the stone of the floor— “that I haven’t done to myself already!”

Aiden’s body collapsed and crumbled into dust. The corridor was back, guttering torches reflecting firelight off the slimy walls. Lambert breathed a choked sigh of relief.

“We’ll see about that,” O’Dimm’s voice whispered around him, and then he was gone. Lambert steeled himself and pushed onward.

~~~~~~

Barbs of ice whirled in the howling wind and tore at her flesh as they flew by. Ciri struggled to free herself and screamed. The maelstrom ripped her voice from her lips before the sound even reached her ears.

Cold, deadening cold. The White Frost of Ithlinne’s Prophecy devoured all it touched, leaving a thick coat of rime where it touched the hull of the Naglfar. Ciri hung chained from the prow, shoulders dislocated, arms forced behind her at an unnatural angle, her feet dangling uselessly beneath her. Her entire body screamed with pain; torn sinews, lacerated skin, frostbite that was agony until the cold went so deep into her flesh she couldn’t feel it anymore. She howled until she felt her throat might bleed, fighting uselessly against her bonds.

Worse than the pain were the horrors that abounded all around her. The bodies of her friends, pale and broken, dark pools of blood already frosting over and soon to be buried by the snow. The lands which she’d called home, rendered unrecognizable by the arctic blast that risen up to claim all.

They’d lost.

 _She’d_ lost. She’d failed them. All of them. Though the frozen wind rendered her eyeballs so dry they felt they might tear if she blinked too hard, she managed a single tear. It froze to her face. She shuddered, her body wracked with heaving, ugly sobs.

A cruel hand seized her by the hair and wrenched her head backward, so that she was looking up at its owner. Eredin smiled at her, but there was no warmth in it. It was the soulless, evil smile of a monster about to devour its prey whole.

“I told you that you could not fly far, little swallow,” he said, tightening his grip on her scalp. “Now, you’re mine.”

Ciri whimpered, flinching away from his touch, screwing up her eyes and waiting for the next horrible thing to come. She’d never given up before, not entirely, not when she’d crossed the Frying Pan, not when Leo Bonhart had murdered and mutilated her friends in front of her, not during all her failed attempts at escaping Tir ná Lia. But this time was different. Because this time there was no one left. There was no Geralt. There was no Yennefer. There was no more Kaer Morhen, or even Kaedwen. No home to go back to. It was all gone, swallowed up by the White Frost. She could only pray that when he was finished with her death would come quickly.

A hand grabbed her arm, and she cried out, recoiling from its touch, expecting more pain.

It took her a moment to recognize its warmth. Her eyes flew open wide in shock. Nothing was warm here, not the fires burning on the Naglfar’s deck, not even her own skin.

“Ciri, damnit, hold still!” a voice she half-recognized said, and she felt a sudden spark of hope in her heart.

“Geralt?”

A knife cut through the bonds holding her, and all of it—Eredin, the Nagalfar, the White Frost, all the corpses and ruin—dissolved at once. Ciri fell to her knees, gasping for air, tears streaming down her face, at the boots of her savior. Boots she recognized—

“Lambert?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he said with a thin smile, holding out a hand. She took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

“What…?”

“One of O’Dimm’s tricks,” Lambert said grimly. “He’s trying to distract us, pick us off one by one so he can find the center of the maze before we do.”

Ciri looked around, blinking tears out of her eyes. “Where are we?”

“The walls.”

The noises around her suddenly resolved into the creaking of the pendulum swinging back and forth and the wind rustling through the needles of the towering pines. Home. Ciri breathed a sigh of relief.

“We have to keep moving,” Lambert said urgently. “This version of Kaer Morhen doesn’t work like the one we’re used to. The rooms don’t connect the same. I haven’t run across any of the others yet. We need to find them and free them.”

Ciri nodded, suddenly feeling much more like herself. It had just been a nightmare, and one that was already fading rapidly. “Right.”

“I’m going after Aiden and von Everec. You find Geralt, understand?”

“Got it.” Ciri embraced him quickly and then drew her sword, letting its heft counterbalance the residual ache in her shoulders. “I’ll see you there!”

She reached out into the void and vanished in a flash of green light.

~~~~~~

The low boom of Ciri’s portal reverberated through Lambert as the vacuum she’d created sucked the breath from his lungs. He shook it off and sighed, sheathing his blade. That was two of them freed, at least. The gods only knew what horrors O’Dimm had concocted for the rest of them.

The trees around the valley quavered as though caught in the leading edge of a massive storm. The pendulum swung back and forth dangerously on its moorings, threatening to blow free of them entirely. Lambert looked around and grimaced. The only way forward was up.

He made for the ladder, rendered less than trustworthy by time and rot, and carefully began to scale the ruined walls of the fortress.

~~~~~~

Geralt was blind.

Well, perhaps not _blind._ His eyes, as far as he could tell, were functioning perfectly. The problem was that there was nothing to see.

The never-ending blackness was deeply unsettling. He was a witcher. His senses were amplified and enhanced by mutagens and rigorous training. He should be able to see _something_ , even in complete darkness. The bricks of a dungeon wall, or a rat scurrying somewhere in the inky black. But strain as hard as he might, there was nothing.

He inched his way carefully forward through the void, trying to puzzle through what part of the fortress he’d found himself in. The last place he remembered being was the kitchen. He’d stepped through the door to the great hall, and found himself here instead. He’d been wandering in the dark ever since. Trying to retrace his steps back to the doorway he’d entered the space through had been fruitless.

He gritted his teeth in frustration. There had to be a way forward. Triss and Keira wouldn’t have added this to the maze. There had to be a way out—a trapdoor, or a hidden passageway—he just had to find it.

Geralt took a few steps forward and tripped over something. He stumbled forward, just managing to catch himself before he fell, and whirled around. His sword was only halfway out of his sheath before he realized he could see.

The object he’d tripped over was a body.

A body with ashen hair. A body with a scar on its cheek. A body with a witcher’s silver sword in the sheath strapped across its back—

“No,” Geralt breathed. _“No!_ It can’t…she isn’t…”

But his resolve wavered even as he denied it. He fell to his knees, something cold and ugly and painful worming its way through his chest as he let his blade fall to the side with a clatter and traced the scar on Ciri’s cheek with his fingertips. It was her, without a doubt. Dead, without a doubt. Just as he’d seen her in the little hut on the Isle of Mists all those years ago, pale and cold and limp.

Geralt said nothing, pulling Ciri’s body into his lap, cradling her like a child. The ugly lump forced its way up his throat despite his attempts to swallow it in an anguished sob. Not here. Not now. Not after everything they’d been through. _Should never have let her come,_ he cursed himself. _This is my fault. It’s always my fault._

Cintra, Thanedd, Stygga, Novigrad, Skellige, Kaer Morhen. How many times had he failed her? How much had she suffered because he’d failed to protect her?

Through the blur of tears in his eyes it almost seemed as if her corpse was shifting, changing to match his memories. A child, her face as yet unmarred, burnt and dying in the streets of Cintra as the city collapsed around her. A young woman, the cut on her cheek still ugly and raw, bruised and battered on the floor in front of him, her abdomen torn open and womb missing. Ciri as she was now, skin blue, hair frosted with a thick coat of rime, the meat of her legs shredded by the vicious teeth of the Hounds of the Wild Hunt.

Geralt cradled her close and sobbed. If Ciri was dead, then O’Dimm had already won. There was no point in carrying on. If it had to end, it might as well end with him by her side, doing in death what he had failed to do in life.

“Geralt!”

The voice came from far away, as if echoing through a cavern. Geralt ignored it, reasoning that he must have gone mad with grief.

Something tried to pull Ciri from his arms.

“Don’t touch her!” His hand flew to his blade, drawing it from its sheath quicker than a striking adder. He couldn’t see the would-be thief, but that was irrelevant. He was going to gut them like a fucking trout.

“Geralt!” The voice was louder now. “Snap out of it!”

He snarled, lashing out blindly with his blade. It slashed through empty air.

Someone slapped him, hard enough to snap his head to the side. “Geralt, please—you’re frightening me!”

“…Ciri?” he breathed.

The body he was holding crumbled like sand through his fingers. Suddenly he could see again, feel the wind that howled through the lower courtyard stinging his skin. A pair of wild green eyes stared into his, frightened and full of concern.

“Thank the gods,” she said, and threw her arms around him.

Geralt wiped his face roughly and felt around for his discarded sword. It was laying just beside him, exactly where he’d let it fall. With some difficulty, he slid it back into its sheath. He held Ciri tightly, willing his heart and breathing to slow.

In the distance, he could hear the unmistakable sound of O’Dimm’s laughter.

~~~~~~

Olgierd von Everec knew only too well the depths of Gaunter O’Dimm’s wickedness. He’d lived a life steeped in it and had not emerged unscathed on the other side. Piece by piece, his pact with the Man of Glass had carved away at him, until he was barely a man at all. True, his heart was no longer one of stone, but when all was said and done and it had returned to flesh and blood, there was precious little of it left.

He, more than any of the others, was expecting O’Dimm’s deceit. From the moment he set foot inside the shattered glass world of the maze, he was on edge. There was no telling what darkness might lurk in each hidden corner. He trod carefully on the unforgiving flagstones of the castle floor, steeling himself for the proverbial boot to drop.

Still, no amount of preparation could have circumvented the shock of stepping through a doorway in one of the upper corridors of the fortress to find himself in the kitchen, face to face with his long-dead brother.

Olgierd took a reflexive step backward, eyes widening. The ghost of Vlodimir von Everec sat at one of the tables, drinking deeply from a horn of ale. But no, that wasn’t right. As Olgierd forced himself to step forward, the harsh smell of alcohol made it apparent that the horn contained not ale, but good Redanian herbal liquor of the sort they’d drunk in their glory days, and the flickering light of the fire in the grate proved Vlodimir’s body to be quite solid. It was him, alive and in the flesh—more or less.

Vlodimir’s head snapped up as he registered Olgierd’s approach. “Brother!” he cried joyously upon seeing his face. “Where the devil have you been? It doesn’t do for a man to drink alone. Come now, pull up a chair!”

Olgierd shook his head, lips pressed tight. It was a trick—he knew it was a trick—and one tailor-made to distract him. He’d fallen for enough of O’Dimm’s schemes for one lifetime. He sidestepped the proffered horn of liquor and made his way determinedly for the door opposite.

There was a crash as Vlodimir jumped to his feet, knocking the bench he was sitting on over backward. “You son of a whore,” he snarled.

Olgierd kept walking.

The apparition of Vlodimir wasn’t letting him pass that easily. An icy hand closed on his arm in a steel grip and yanked him backward. Olgierd reached for the hilt of his saber, but before his fingertips could so much as brush the oiled leather Vlodimir’s hands were around his neck and hoisting him violently into the air.

“Too good for me, eh?” Vlodimir said, his expression terrible, his eyes an unsettling milky white. “Too good to have a drink with your own flesh and blood? After the price I paid to make your wish come true?”

Olgierd choked for air, but Vlodimir’s hands squeezed ever tighter. He scrabbled at his throat, trying to pry his fingers away, but could find no purchase.

“When were you planning on telling me, eh?” Vlodimir spat. “All those years, my bones decayed to dust, naught but a specter haunting the grounds of our home, which _you_ let fall to ruin—and you have the _gall_ to sit by my grave and pretend you had nothing to do with it? Painting yourself as the hero, ever the better brother, pouring out liquor on the floor of the catacombs, when _you_ were the one who did this to me—”

Spots of brightness like distant stars swirled in the periphery of Olgierd’s vision. His legs pedaled uselessly beneath him. His head pounded with the force of his blood—it felt as if it were about to burst—

“It brings me no joy to do this, brother,” Vlodimir said, squeezing harder. “But after all, a man reaps what he—”

The point of a sword erupted from his chest, and Vlodimir’s words died in his throat in a choked gurgle. His hands released their grip on Olgierd’s neck, and Olgierd fell to the floor, gasping and retching. Vlodimir’s body melted and collapsed in on itself horrifically until nothing remained of it but an oily stain on the floor.

“You alright, von Everec?”

Olgierd looked upward to see the familiar yellow eyes and hooked nose of the witcher Lambert. He coughed and nodded, rubbing at his throat. “Still in one piece,” he said hoarsely. “Though I’m not certain if that’s for the better.”

“Come on. Gotta keep moving.” Lambert held out a hand and pulled Olgierd to his feet. “You seen Aiden anywhere?”

The note of worry in his voice was painfully transparent. Olgierd shook his head. “You’re the only other person I’ve encountered since touching the glass.”

“Freed Ciri already. She’s gone after Geralt. We’ll find them and Aiden, and go after the cornerstone together.”

Olgierd nodded, drawing his blade. He was damned if he was going to be caught off guard by O’Dimm’s tricks again.

~~~~~~

Knowing the fortress’s layout wasn’t much of an advantage when everything was scrambled like this, Lambert thought to himself as he and von Everec made their way through disconnected rooms and corridors. The shattered-glass cracks in his vision were irritating as well. He thought he could sense something moving around in them—little flashes of movement in the corner of his eye—but when he turned to face it, there was nothing there.

The upstairs corridor led to the dock at the lake, which led to the old bastion, which led to the armory, which shouldn’t have been accessible due to a previous cave-in. Not that the laws of reality mattered much here.

Lambert pushed onward, doing his best not to panic about the fact that there was no sign of Aiden anywhere. The gods only knew where he might have ended up, or what O’Dimm might have done to him. Von Everec remained mercifully silent, pale-faced but steady on his feet.

Passing the rusted swords and crossbows that hung on the walls, Lambert pushed open the heavy oak door on the other side of the armory and found himself in a cave.

It was dark—not so dark that Lambert couldn’t see, with his enhanced sight, but dark enough that much of their surroundings were obscured in shadow. Lambert stepped cautiously forward, anticipating one of O’Dimm’s tricks. This wasn’t a place he was familiar with. He was certain he’d never set foot here before.

“Where are we?” Von Everec stumbled on the uneven rocky ground. Lambert threw out an arm and steadied him.

“Stay close to me.”

Lambert drew his blade slowly, careful not to make any noise. He crept forward across the damp cave floor, with von Everec close behind. They eventually came across a sconce set into the wall.

“Be on your guard,” Lambert said in a low voice. He carefully drew the sign of Igni, and the torch sputtered to life.

Lambert’s body reacted before his mind fully processed the shapes thrown into harsh relief by the light of the flames, his heart racing in his chest.

The Trials of the Grasses.

The cave was full of the shit. Alchemical supplies, shelves of moldy books, stumps of old candles half-melted into puddles.

Several wicked iron tables, complete with shackles.

Lambert swallowed the lump of mixed fear and rage that rose in his throat as memories jumped unbidden to the front of his mind. He forced them back, swearing foully under his breath.

“What is all of this?” von Everec asked.

“Relics of a crueler time.” Lambert said nothing more, sweeping past the tables without a glance backward. He felt a flicker of irrational fear that if he were to allow the iron to touch his flesh it would devour him, shackle him down and hold him there until at last he withered away. Did Geralt know this was here? He gritted his teeth. Did Vesemir?

The torchlight was fading behind them, but a cool wash of moonlight splashed across the floor ahead. Lambert and von Everec stepped out of the cave and found themselves outside—not wherever the cave’s exit point should logically have been, but on a small hillock, with the sound of a rushing stream nearby. A sea of stars hung overhead. At the hill’s peak was a stone monument.

Leo’s grave.

Someone knelt beside it, a hooded silhouette with twin blades strapped to its back—

“Aiden?”

The witcher’s eyes flicked open, and he got to his feet. “Thank the gods,” he said, stretching. “I got separated from the others, and I can’t make heads nor tails of this place. No matter which way I turned, I couldn’t tell if I was headed toward the center of the maze or away from it. In the end it seemed better to stay where I was and wait to encounter someone else.”

He took a step forward, and Lambert took a step back. Aiden looked at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“Prove it’s actually you.” Lambert didn’t lower his blade.

“What?”

“Humor me.”

Aiden sighed. “Many years ago, in Velen, you accepted a smooth pebble as payment for rescuing a fisherman rather than invoking the law of surprise. You carried it with you for months afterward. The argument my actions caused drove a rift between us that never fully healed.”

Lambert sheathed his blade. “Good enough for me.” He strode forward and embraced Aiden.

“Something happened,” Aiden said, his arms still around Lambert. “O’Dimm?”

“Yes.” Lambert left it at that. He released Aiden. “Freed Geralt and Ciri, but I’m not sure where they are now. We should keep moving forward, and try to get to the center. If luck is on our side, we’ll find them there.”

Von Everec muttered something under his breath, but Lambert chose to ignore it. “Come on,” he said determinedly, and set off along the path back to the fortress.

~~~~~~

The trio stepped through the smashed portcullis at the base of the courtyard, and found themselves in the center of the great hall.

“This isn’t right,” Lambert muttered. “I’ve been here already. We’re going in circles.”

“Which way did you go out?” Aiden asked.

Lambert indicated the door to the kitchen.

“Let’s take this one, then.” Aiden pointed to a side door that should have led to the collapsed armory. “I can’t explain it, but I have a feeling that it’s the right way to go.”

“Alright.” Lambert nodded and set off in that direction, the other two close on his heels. The door swung open with a rusty creak, and he stepped through it—

And into the cool night breeze. The wind ruffled through his hair and the tall grass that grew on the cliff side just outside the fortress. The moon was full in the sky overhead. It should have been all but pitch black, but the light of a single torch washed over the crumbling stones of the wall behind them.

Holding the torch was a man. A man with silver hair and a green gambeson. He sat on a boulder, his posture bowed by age. Two sword hilts were visible over his shoulder.

The man looked up, and his eyes glowed in the torchlight. Witcher’s eyes, golden and catlike.

“Vesemir,” Lambert breathed.

The old man got to his feet with some difficulty. “I see you’ve found the center of the maze.”

The sound of his voice was like a crossbow bolt striking Lambert’s chest. He made a fist. Was this another of O’Dimm’s tricks?

“The cornerstone,” Aiden murmured. “The thing that holds Kaer Morhen together.”

The moment he spoke the words, Lambert knew them to be true. Vesemir was the bricks that held the walls of the fortress up. He was the mortar between them, keeping them together. He was the voice of tradition, of wisdom gained by a lifetime of unimaginable joy and sadness. It was him. There was no question about it.

Lambert forced his feet to step forward. The torchlight illuminated his face, and Vesemir smiled.

“You’ve done well, my boy.” He laid a hand on Lambert’s shoulder. “Your task is nearly complete. Triss placed me here to guard the exit. All you have to do now is step through it.”

The door in the wall swung open once more, and Lambert could hear Ciri’s cry, Geralt’s shocked intake of air. All five of them had made it. They were going to win. They’d beaten O’Dimm.

Vesemir squeezed his shoulder. “Stay together. Seek solace in one another. And remember—the hunter who fails to consider his surroundings will soon become the prey.”

The torchlight went out, and Vesemir was gone, dissolved into a thousand points of glimmering light, like a fountain of sparks leaping upward from a bonfire. Lambert blinked tears from his eyes and looked down. In the spot where Vesemir had stood moments before was his grave, rough stone with his sword sticking upward out of it. The hilt glowed with strange light.

“This is it!” he called back to the others, the quaver his voice betraying his emotions. “I think all we have to do is touch it, and we’ll be able to leave.”

“I do hate to interrupt such a heartwarming reunion,” said an oily voice from the darkness nearby, “but I’m afraid I cannot allow you to leave this place.”

Lambert’s heart dropped into his stomach. Not here. Not now. Not when they were so close to the end of things that he could practically taste it.

Geralt cursed foully. “The whoreson wasn’t trying to solve the maze himself. He followed us to the exit.”

“Right on all counts.” Gaunter O’Dimm stepped from the shadows. Lambert gritted his teeth.

“It’s over, O’Dimm. You’ve lost.”

“Ah, but I think we both know that isn’t quite true. You still have yet to touch the handle. And time—” He grinned widely— “Is a marvelous plaything.”

 _“Shit,”_ Geralt swore. “Ciri—”

Ciri vanished in a flash of green light and reappeared an instant later, her blade slashing through the air where O’Dimm had been standing just moments before.

O’Dimm clucked his tongue. The party whirled around to see him sitting perched on the wall above. “Bad luck, dear.”

Ciri growled and vanished again. Again, her blade sang through the air, meeting no resistance. O’Dimm cackled—the sound seemed to be coming from all sides.

“My, but you are spirited. Young, skilled beyond compare with a blade…” Lambert could hear the curl of the smile in O’Dimm’s voice. “And Elder Blood, to boot.”

Geralt let out a roar of rage, watching helplessly as Ciri flashed from place to place, ever faster, always only an instant too slow to catch O’Dimm. Lambert seized his arm and pulled.

“C’mon, Geralt, we’ve gotta go. She’s got him distracted. This is our only chance—”

Geralt shoved him away roughly. “I’ll go when Ciri is safe.”

“You stubborn son of a bitch.” Lambert groaned in frustration. He focused and drew the sign of Aard.

The blast hit Geralt full force in the center of the chest, sending him flying backward. His body struck the hilt of Vesemir’s sword, and he vanished in a shower of sparks. Lambert breathed a sigh of relief.

“One down. Von Everec—”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Von Everec threw himself forward and grasped the pommel, and then he was gone.

“Ciri!” Lambert shouted. The witcheress was darting in and out of space so rapidly that Lambert couldn’t get a fix on her. The instant she appeared, she was gone again. “Time’s up, let’s move!”

The flash of green light next to Lambert blinded him momentarily. The force of the displaced air sent him stumbling backward—he caught a glimpse of green eyes, and she was gone.

“That,” O’Dimm remarked, appearing suddenly a few feet away from Lambert and Aiden, “was a grave error.”

Lambert stared at him defiantly. “Threaten all you want. You’ve lost.”

O’Dimm chuckled. “Not so long as you remain.”

He raised a hand, and with a menacing glint in his eye snapped his fingers. Aiden fell to the ground screaming, hunched over with his head in his hands. The mottling of his skin worsened, his hands a latticework of sickly yellow and purple lividity.

“I’m the one in control here. Or had you forgotten?” O’Dimm shook his head pityingly. “Your compatriots escaped because I allowed them to. I’ve no interest in the girl, and the sight of Geralt and von Everec leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But you, Lambert—” he tapped his forearm. “You still owe me a debt.”

The brand on Lambert’s forearm seared with pain. Lambert screamed with rage and threw himself forward, sinking his sword to the hilt into O’Dimm’s chest.

The sensation of steel biting into flesh threw him off guard. He’d expected to meet no resistance, for the point of his blade to pass through empty space only for O’Dimm to appear elsewhere a moment later. Lambert stumbled, relinquishing his grip on the hilt as if he’d been burnt.

O’Dimm stood quite calmly, skewered like an fish on a pike, watching Lambert with interest. No blood stained the yellow fabric of his jerkin. He appeared entirely unfazed by the sudden addition of several pounds of honed steel to his body.

“I suppose I must commend you for trying,” he remarked, examining his fingernails idly. “Though I’m certain that Geralt gave you ample warning that no mortal man can truly harm me.” He pulled the blade from his chest and dropped it to the ground with a clatter.

Aiden’s screams had given way to shuddering sobs. He pushed himself up onto his knees, gasping for air. Lambert caught a glimpse of his face and recoiled—at the snap of O’Dimm’s fingers, rot had set in like poison coursing through Aiden’s veins. Though Aiden hadn’t been in the best of condition at the outset of the challenge, he now looked as if several weeks had passed from the time Keira had arrested his decay. His eyes were crazed with pain, the whites yellowed. His lips were pale and drawn.

“Time is a marvelous plaything,” O’Dimm repeated smugly.

Lambert snarled, all rational thought leaving him in an instant, hell-bent on tearing O’Dimm limb from limb with his own bare hands. He threw himself forward and O’Dimm side-stepped him easily, clucking his tongue.

“Lambert, Lambert. How many times must I teach you this lesson?”

Lambert snatched his steel sword up from the grass. “Get up, Aiden!” he said urgently, yanking on the other man’s arm. “We gotta go. Damnit, get up!”

Aiden got to his feet with difficulty, looking as if every breath was agony. “Lambert,” he said hoarsely through cracked lips. “I can’t…”

“It seems you still harbor the delusion of leaving this place,” O’Dimm said coldly. “I’m afraid that’s quite impossible.”

“Whoreson,” Lambert growled. “Leave Aiden out of this. Your quarrel is with me.”

O’Dimm laughed. “And why would I do that?”

“Because,” Lambert said, his mind racing, every pained gasp of Aiden’s breath another knife through his chest. “Because if you let him go, I won’t run. I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. I’ll willingly give you my soul.”

“Lambert…” Aiden hissed. “Don’t—”

“Shut up. This is my decision.” Lambert sheathed his blades and stepped forward toward O’Dimm. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” He made an open gesture. “Take it. I don’t give a shit. But set Aiden free. Let him live as he was, not as what you’ve turned him into.”

O’Dimm grinned as if he’d just been handed a particularly delicious morsel. “Is this truly what you wish, Lambert?”

Lambert rolled up his sleeve, exposing the brand on his arm. “Don’t make me say it twice.”

O’Dimm acquiesced. “Agreed. I shall do you that kindness.” He extended a hand. “We shall shake on it.”

Lambert stepped forward, his heart pounding in his chest, teeth clenched. The wind blew through his hair, an echo of that fateful night at the crossroads under the light of the rising moon. The rune on his arm glowed with demonic fire as he extended his hand to take O’Dimm’s—

His fingers passed through empty space. O’Dimm staggered backward, struggling to free himself from the iron grasp of Aiden’s withered hands.

“You said no mortal man can harm you,” Aiden said with venom, dragging O’Dimm away backward from Vesemir’s grave. “Unlucky for you—I’m not exactly mortal, am I? You saw to that yourself.”

O’Dimm cursed, trying and failing to tear himself free of Aiden’s grip.

“Lambert, _go!_ ” Aiden shouted. “Get out of here! I’ll hold him back.”

“Not without you—”

“I lived my life, and now it’s done. I want to rest, and when this is over I shall. _Please,_ Lambert,” Aiden pleaded. “I can’t hold him forever.”

“Aiden—”

“I love you,” the other man said brokenly. “Now go. Please.”

“Den Teufel halte, wer ihn hält,” O’Dimm snarled. “Er wird ihn nicht so bald zum zweiten Male fangen.” He fought against Aiden’s grasp.

“I can’t,” Lambert said through gritted teeth, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

“You stubborn son of a bitch.” Aiden smiled sadly. “I know.”

Something rolled across the grass toward him, kicked by the toe of Aiden’s boot. Lambert had only a split second to identify it—there was no time to dodge, no avoiding it. In the single instant before the bomb exploded, he barely managed to draw the sign of Quen.

The blast hit him full force, the shield shattering in a shower of golden sparks as he was thrown violently backward.

“Live well,” Aiden said. “I’ll see you again someday.”

Lambert felt the pommel of Vesemir’s sword, hard and unforgiving, as his back slammed against it. The world dissolved—

And reformed in an instant. He was hurled out of the mirror, his breath knocked from his chest as he impacted the stone of the tower battlements. He scrambled to his feet, sword already drawn, sprinting toward Keira and Triss.

“Put me back in!” he shouted. “Keira, I have to—”

Triss shook her head sadly. Lambert’s wild eyes found what was left of the mirror—only warped silver backing, tarnished by age. Shards of glass were scattered all around like frozen tears.

Something else glinted among them in the low light. Lambert bent down silently and picked it up, clenching his fist around the cold metal.

With shaking fingers, he fastened the chain of Aiden’s medallion around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Augh I forgot to post the update until almost the end of the day! I'm sorry guys! 
> 
> I apologize for absolutely none of the whump in this chapter. Y'all know what I'm about by now. (I will admit that I cried while writing it though)
> 
> Final chapter will be posted on 10/31!
> 
> **Toward the end, Gaunter O'Dimm is quoting Faust. In English: "Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time."


	15. Dziady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the lovely [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)! I can't thank them enough for all the hard work they've put into this story <3

A month passed in silence.

As the autumn chill slowly wrapped its fingers around the stones of Kaer Morhen’s battlements, so the cold seeped too into the party’s bones. Lambert walked through life as if through a fog, largely unaware of the passage of time. While the others scattered to the corners of the fortress, engrossed in their own thoughts and hushed conversations, he walked numbly down rocky paths laced with frost to the shore of the lake and sat on the edge of the dock, looking out across still and misty waters as he absentmindedly traced the pattern of the rune that was no longer branded in his forearm.

He would return to the keep late, long after the others were asleep, if at all. Occasionally someone would leave food for him. Occasionally he’d force himself to eat it. Occasionally it didn’t turn to sand in his mouth.

Of all the others, it seemed that only von Everec understood. Though he never said a word to Lambert, the look in his eyes as he stared into the kitchen fire at night was enough. Though one could be freed of O’Dimm’s contracts, the dissolution of the pact did nothing to deaden the pain it caused. When all was said and done, he was still a broken shell of a man, standing amidst a ruin of his own making.

Geralt had offered to make a grave for Aiden, in the beginning. One like Leo’s, or Vesemir’s. A proper witcher’s grave—a kindness that neither of them were likely to receive when their lives came to an end. Lambert had simply shaken his head. Kaer Morhen wasn’t Aiden’s home. There was nothing that bound him here. His mind wandered to a hill just outside Ellander, to ash-strewn earth covered by a large flat stone with simple runes clumsily etched into its surface by the sharp edge of a pocket knife. To the whispering of the leaves of a massive oak tree spread out overhead, as if the branches themselves reached up to the stars above. If there was a single place on the Continent still touched by Aiden’s soul, it was there.

The silver of his medallion was heavier around Lambert’s neck than he remembered. Perhaps he’d simply forgotten. Or was it the weight of memories that pulled against his skin? Was it the bitter regret of having come close enough to taste the future only to have it dissolve into bitter ashes on his tongue?

The wind tousled Lambert’s hair as he sat on the dock, the stagnant waters of the lake lapping at the soles of his boots. Lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t register the presence of another person until he heard a board creak under her weight. He stayed exactly where he was. No point in turning to see who was there. He already knew her by the tread of her feet. He’d been hearing it ever since she was a child.

Ciri sat on the edge of the dock beside him, ashen hair glistening in the cold autumn sunlight. For a time she said nothing, and for that Lambert was grateful. They simply looked out over the water together, occupying the same space. The steady pumping of her heart in her chest was a strange comfort to Lambert. It was familiar, in the same way that the scent of his mother’s hair had been, or the scent of sound of chickens scratching in the backyard of the house he’d grown up in.

“He loved you, you know,” Ciri said after a while.

Lambert looked down at the tiny ripples that spread from the place his boots touched the water and kissed the piling of the dock ever so gently. “I know.”

“I truly believe that this was the way he intended things to end from the beginning,” she said, a note of sadness in her voice. “He’d endured much. He only wanted for you to be safe.”

“Maybe it wasn’t his choice to make,” Lambert said bitterly.

“Is that truly how you feel?”

Lambert sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes.” He glanced sideways at Ciri. “That’s selfish, isn’t it.”

“Love is selfish.” Ciri’s eyes were misty as she looked out over the water. “Did I ever tell you about Mistle?”

Lambert shook his head.

“I suppose the details are unimportant. What matters is that I loved her, and she loved me. I was young, and arrogant—still a child, really—but I loved her all the same. Even when she was cruel. Even when I was cruel back.”

She paused, a single tear falling from her eye as she blinked. “I never got to say goodbye to her, either. The last memory I have of her is of Leo Bonhart cutting her head from her shoulders. The fear and agony on her dead face. The blood. That’s how I remember her. The more time that passes, the more that moment eclipses everything else about her. The way she held me when I’d wake up with nightmares. How she always shared her sweets with me. The sound of her voice—it’s gone.”

Lambert gripped the edge of the dock until splinters dug into his fingertips. He knew that feeling all too well. Blood splashed across the cobblestones of Ellander in the recesses of his mind.

“That isn’t how Aiden wanted you to remember him, Lambert. No matter the outcome of the pact, it bought you time. It bought a new beginning, and a new end. That’s all we can ask for, sometimes. A chance to rewrite the smallest portion of destiny.”

“I’m not sure if it hurts more or less this time around.”

“I wouldn’t be either.” Ciri reached out and covered Lambert’s hand with her own. “But you’re not alone.”

~~~~~~

Flatlands and scrub grass gave way under the beat of their horses’ hooves to rolling hills and the soft tolling of bells in the distance. Lambert felt a bittersweet pang in his chest at the sight of the walls of Ellander in the distance, and the silhouette of the belfry at the Temple of Melitele against the dusky sky.

As the sun fell low in the sky, tiny points of light sprang up along the hill cascading down from the city wall to the temple. The scent of burning tallow mixed with incense floated toward the party on the breeze.

Dziady. Samhain. Forefather’s Eve.

The boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead was thin this night. Four witchers’ medallions hummed loudly against three chests in response to the ambient magic in the air. All across the north, those who still followed the old ways flocked to their family graves with candles and offerings of herbs and food.

The party had lost two more from their number since departing Kaer Morhen. Triss had parted ways with them at Kaedwen’s border, citing a need to return to Kovir for a brief time before joining the rest of them in Nazair. Olgierd von Everec had elected to travel with her, though she hardly needed the protection. Those remaining were halfway through the long journey south to Assengard, where they intended to wait out the winter. Lambert hadn’t been sure if they would make it to Ellander in time, but thanks to a few days of mercifully clear weather, they arrived at the foot of a certain hill just as the sun slipped below the horizon.

It looked much the same as it had in his memories. The ancient oak still towered high above, its branches bending lazily in the breeze. The others hung behind as Lambert dismounted his horse and climbed the hill, everything in silence save the soft crunch of browned grass under his boots.

The stone was still there, exactly where he’d placed it with scraped and bloody hands all those years ago. He’d never come back. He’d always thought he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand where he’d stood then without shattering into pieces. Perhaps he’d grown stronger over the years. Perhaps the pain had grown duller.

Nature had surged up to reclaim the ground burnt clear of vegetation by Aiden’s funeral pyre. The stone that marked his final resting place was now surrounded by clumps of sweet-smelling wood sorrel and meadowsweet. Flecks of mica glinted in the rock under the light of the rising moon.

Lambert knelt and pulled a simple tallow candle from his bag. He placed it on the stone and lit it with a whisper of Igni. It flared to life, flame licking hungrily at the wick and casting strange shadows across the surface of the stone. He took a bundle of dried herbs from his bag and lit the end from the candle’s flame, blowing it out once it had taken hold and placing the smoldering incense on the stone beside the candle. The smoky scent of rosemary and sage drifted up around his face.

“Thank you,” he whispered. The breeze snatched his words from his lips. “Thank you for being part of my life. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for all the things you taught me.” Lambert swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry for the way things turned out. I’m sorry for all the ways I hurt you. I hope that you’ll give me the chance to make it up to you when I see you again.”

Later, Lambert was certain he imagined it, but in that moment he could have sworn he felt the soft caress of fingers against his cheek. He wiped his eyes roughly and stood.

The others climbed the hill and stood beside him, holding offerings in their hands. One by one, they placed them on the rock beside the candle. A sweet fall apple, pilfered from a nearby orchard. A fragrant bundle of rosemary, gathered by the roadside. A few Novigrad crowns—the gold glinted dully in the candlelight. A fresh loaf of harvest bread, studded with seeds, purchased in the last town.

Keira reached out silently and interlaced her hand with Lambert’s. Ciri did the same on his other side, Geralt’s arm around her shoulders. The four of them stood together in the soft glow of the candlelight, leaning on one another, and watched the occasional sparks given off by the wick fly slowly upward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, it's really over, isn't it? It doesn't feel real, somehow. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read this story, especially those of you who have been with me since Silver for Monsters! I truly hope that you enjoyed it. I'm so incredibly proud of Lambert and how much he's grown over the years. 
> 
> I don't have immediate plans to write any further Lambert stories, BUT I am kicking around some ideas in my head. We'll see--I'm probably going to take a bit of a hiatus from The Witcher to work on some stories for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but I have a feeling that I'll end up back here eventually. 
> 
> If you want more Lambert/Aiden, I do have an ongoing series of smutty one-shots [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1291211), which actually updated today with the first part of an installment for Samhain! Consider it an everyone lives AU. I promise there's no hurt to be found. 
> 
> I seriously can't thank you guys enough for coming on this journey with me. Thank you as always for reading 💙💙💙
> 
> Edit January 2020: I wanted to show this beautiful art I commissioned from [Topsy](https://thana-topsy.tumblr.com/) of Lambert and Aiden. Please enjoy it <3


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